


A World In Which

by Merixcil



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, Non-binary character, Other, Terminal Illnesses, Trans Character, au - magically disappearing men, descriptions of birth and pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-08-19 04:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 39,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8190326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: None of the men came home after the war. They would never quite wrap their heads around how it happened, agreeing only that they went to bed one night and when they woke up half the world had vanished.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was initially intended to be a oneshot, but I looked up and it was 40k words so I'm publishing as chapters. Barring significant rewrites, there will be a new chapter every day. 
> 
> I will update the tags as the story progresses, there is some romance further down the line but this is first and foremost a story about Eliza. The musical timeline and canon take precedence over historical accuracy, though some events and characters come from history rather than the stage.

None of the men came home after the war. They would never quite wrap their heads around how it happened, agreeing only that they went to bed one night and when they woke up half the world had vanished. Surely then, there must have been a moment, when the first women were waking and the last women were heading to their beds, when the men were both here and not here. There must have been someone who didn’t sleep that night, what of them?

Eliza woke on the first morning of a new age with her bones aching under the pressure of new life growing inside her. Pregnancy was hard, all that vomiting and bleeding and impossible emotions. To be pregnant was to give your body over to a stranger who you loved so unconditionally that you let them at it. There were no men waiting for her on any other morning, so she did not notice. She rather fancied that she might stay in bed all day, nurture her swollen belly and be happy of the respite that absent husbands afforded her.

“Mr Church is gone,” Angelica had announced as she strode into the house that afternoon. Her voice didn’t break, not then, not at first, “all of them are.”

“All of who?” Eliza sat on the edge of her bed, willfully misunderstanding. She had thought it was the war. 

“The men.”

“But then…the British!”

“Are also gone. Every man is gone, Eliza.”

Eliza would never forget the look of mesmerised triumph on her sister’s face, before she started to really think about everything that had been lost over the course of a night. Angelica looked like freedom, the pages of history opening up to let her in. This was the beginning of great things, this was the end of empires. 

They had sat in the house all afternoon, till Angelica had remembered their father and become distraught. Eliza stepped out onto the front doorstep to give her sister’s grief time to settle, she would not be talked out of it. To Eliza, it did not seem real or possible. It was an attack from the British, or a cruel prank, she did not think her sister was lying.

People were wailing in the streets. A flurry of children went running down the road, yelping and screeching, their mothers nowhere in sight. Every one of them was a little girl. How strange. How thoroughly beyond comprehension. Eliza sat on the stoop, the sun setting over the crest of Manhattan Island, and decided not to think on it too much. 

It was many days before reality could begin to permeate the shell of incredulity that they had all withdrawn into. There were no ships missing from the harbour, no carriages misplaced as if in mass exodus. They all trod so carefully in their long skirts and pretty little shoes, stepping into spaces they normally were not allowed to go. When Eliza saw packs of women huddled around the entrances to warehouses and men’s clubs she had to fight the urge to scowl – these were not their places, or their rules to break.

“Alexander will explain, I’m sure,” she said. 

Angelica looked confused, Peggy cast her a long sideways look, “the postman hasn’t been in a week. How is he supposed to tell you anything? If he’s still-“

“He is alive. They all are. People don’t just up and vanish like that.”

Eliza combed back through the letters Alexander had sent her from his place at George Washington’s side, squinting at the spaces he left between words and trying to spot the plot to rid New York of men that he would surely of warned her of had he known. 

She could only assume he hadn’t known a thing. Eliza pulled up her skirts and went about her business, waddling precariously through streets that seemed eternally on the cusp of riots and looting. She kept her fingers crossed at her side, hoping that this would be the day that men rode in from outside the city to put things back to rights.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a strange sort of grief

It was a strange sort of grief, the loss of so many individual people mixed with incredulity that they could all have gone at once. No one called it death, because death left bodies, it wanted to be found. This was Vanishment. The longer it went on the stranger it seemed, as women poured into the city from the surrounding countryside, confused and weeping, demanding to see their husbands, fathers, sons, brothers. New York had nothing to offer them. 

Angelica let her emotions run through her at breakneck pace, every new loss cut a little deeper. Her heaving bosom and tear stained cheeks seemed to be the only permanent aspects of her countenance as she flew between joy at the absence of one man and misery at the absence of another. She tied her hair back into ridiculous plaits and queues and reveled that no one told her it was inappropriate, she ripped off the bottom of her skirts, she wore breeches, she went down to the pier to scream her frustrations at the skyline. 

No shade of reality had broken over Eliza, out of all of them she was perhaps the least credulous. Angelica believed in magic, Peggy believed in what was in front of her eyes. Eliza believed in what made sense, and this did not, would never, make any sense to her. She continued as she might have done anyway, walking slowly to the houses of friends and back, letting people drop in with well wishes for the birth. She held the hands of women who were sure they would never see their husbands again and said nothing, all the while certain that one of these nights they would all fall asleep and when they woke it would be as if this lapse never occurred. 

Peggy was practical, “well, I guess we best get on with things,” she said, and promptly sat down at Philip Schuyler’s desk to pick up where he left off. 

“I assumed it would be Angelica to start on the books,” Catherine said to Eliza over coffee. Their mother seemed more at peace with her changed circumstances than any of the sisters would have anticipated. The carefully choreographed calm of the Schuyler residence went undisturbed. 

There was talk of food shortages in the city, as the farms lost manpower and the fishermen stopped coming into port. These were learned trades, not beyond the reach of women but beyond the line that had been drawn in the sand, and the few of them that had ever broken across were not enough to support the rest indefinitely. Peggy saw the problem in the dwindling numbers of her father's ledger - in time her handwriting would come to look like his. 

People began to hoard, just a little, just enough to be sure that if the world decided to go up in flames after all they would have something to fall back on. The centre of New York was still crowded, only now the masses moved with an uneasy sense of purpose. Get in, get out, try not to think too hard about what you're going to do if today is the day the riots start. 

Surely there should have been riots. Some afternoons there were rumours of looted shops in some far off corner of the city, but they never amounted to much. The newspapers had stopped printing, the men had run them and there were more important things to worry about than who told the tales, so rumour was all they had. 

Eliza made no comment, she had no opinion on all the talk of hellfire and brimstone. The world felt uncomfortably cold to the touch, save the growing warmth in her belly. When the baby kicked it would leave an imprint of its foot on her skin, she had a fighter growing inside of her. 

Staring down her mother's dining table at the empty seats that had been left for Philip Schuyler, John Church and Alexander Hamilton, Eliza did not see spaces that she was meant to fill. She saw chasms, unhealable wounds. A gunshot echoed in the back of her mind like the last reverberations of whatever misfortune has befallen her. Her back was as straight as it could be under the extra weight but her hands were shaking. 

“When the men come home from war, all this will be seen to.” It never even occurred to Eliza that there might not be any men to come back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A month passed, the men did not return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of past abusive relationships in this chapter. Nothing graphic.

A month passed, the men did not return. Order was breaking down and rebuilding itself by the day, as wives took over their husband’s positions in society and carved out new places of their own. The bruised and the battered built bonfires to the husbands and fathers that had held them captive, there was a flash of red ever present in their crowds. Whether it was a smear of blood or the hesitant first steps of self indulgent passion could not be said. They burned effigies of their tormentors and laughed to see them go up in smoke.

The smoke brought tears to their eyes. Grief is full of contradictions, so is independence. They had, so many of them, passed through life without a proper understanding of what it was they had been locked out of. Some of them were content to press on regardless, while others lined the aisles of public libraries searching frantically for the keys to the city that they only now understood has been held high above their heads. 

Lines of women still formed around places that were not meant for them. The inner chambers of the courthouse seemed particularly fascinating to them all, as they each took their turn to sit upon the high chair and stare down their noses at the assembled crowds. They would bang the gavel and pronounce sentences, painfully aware that there were scant few among them who understood the first thing about how to practice the law. 

The women from the lands outlying the city were better prepared, out in the countryside there were no students or legal aids to assist in the running of small town courts, and so wives had helped their husbands as much as they were able. It was not much, but it was enough to set hope in the beating heart of the city. There was a call out for women of any legal experience, and as a collective they formed a court that was slow and misshapen, but functional. 

Theodosia Bartow had little that was favourable to say of the distress and disarray they had been left in. Every time she heard the words “if only I had studied such things” she launched into a tirade of curses aimed at every man who ever decided his daughters did not need to learn. She alarmed and divided them, arriving as she did a full six weeks into their crisis on horseback, assuring them all that there would be no triumphant returning column of soldiers, American or otherwise. She had sheltered the continental army in her home, defiant of King George and her husband, and she was adamant that they could not have cleared off of her land so fast without waking her. She was a raised fist in the face of patriarchy who wore her self satisfaction with pride. Here was a woman who had been thinking by herself for too long, she was ready for action. 

“All the men are gone. It is us now,” Theodosia informed the Schuyler mansion with relish. Eliza quietly chose not to believe her. This new friend had attached herself to their family, because the name Hamilton meant something to her. She spoke of a man she had loved who had served with Alexander, then she squeezed Eliza’s hand and smiled a smile that seemed confident enough for the future of New York. 

Peggy looked between Theodosia and Angelica and saw the future, “we’ll be in need of political leaders, you know.” 

Eliza’s belly weighed heavy on her. It was only as the end of her ninth month approached that she noticed Theodosia was in a similar position to her. “This child is not my husband’s.” Theodosia said with triumph in her eyes. 

“My husband will be thrilled to meet his son.” Eliza replied, firmly. Theodosia had looked at her with an uncomfortably perceptive level of sympathy and reminded her that no boys had been born since the rest of New York City’s men had vanished. How do you explain to someone that your belief in the way of the universe will not be shattered so easily?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theodosia is listed on AO3 as 'Theodosia Prevost Burr' but her maiden name was Bartow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birth is hard and painful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for descriptions of birth in this chapter.

Birth is hard and painful, a body fighting a war against a foreign oppressor that has hijacked emotions and nutrients for the best part of a year, and has finally had enough. Eliza didn't remember much in the way of detail looking back on it, but she knew she screamed. She knew she cried. She remembered for one terrible second, believing that Alexander would never return to help her fulfill the task of parenthood. 

She pressed on, she pushed herself to the limit of all human endurance. The midwife stood up, cradling a squealing little thing that was dropped onto Eliza’s deflating stomach as all the world fell away. 

A rough crop of dark hair, skin the same golden bronze as Alexander's, all the joy and love and hope that she hadn’t realised had been festering inside her burst forth and Eliza wept. Her arms came up to cradle the child that the two of them had made and she had carried, feeling the future physically manifest itself before her. 

It was a girl. Eliza had thought she would be discouraged by a daughter but when the time came she could not distinguish this joy from any other. She threw open her doors and delighted at the crowd of people who came through them to marvel at the child. Her sisters and her mother cooing down at the next generation, her friends eager to see what great good their dear Eliza could manage. 

"What a sweet little thing," Margaret Shippen pinched the baby's cheeks and tried to tie a ribbon through her hair. The ribbon didn't last long. 

It alarmed Eliza that her friend had shed her husband's name so quickly. Not even six months from the Vanishment and already women were behaving as if their men had never been. Angelica had never really been a Church in anyone's eyes but her husband's, and it would appear that Theodosia had been staring down her nose at the name Prevost since it was first bestowed upon her, but it was one thing to reject a name on principal and quite another to throw a whole marriage out of the window in the wake of an extended silence. 

Eliza was a Hamilton, she would die a Hamilton, her daughter would be a Hamilton. She had two sisters to be Schuylers, if she did not stand for Alexander's name in his absence no one would. 

It took nearly three months for Theodosia to come by for a visit. By that time she was managing the scouts that had been sent out to see if they could find the army, and no news had yet come home. Peggy had become regulator to the merchant trades as if by accident, Angelica was trying to wrestle a new New York congress into existence. And here two new mothers sat, coming to terms with the fact that their parenthood would be different from what they imagined. 

“Meet Theo. I’m terrible with names,” Theodosia pushed the child into Eliza’s arms. 

Eliza looked down and saw a familiar pair of dark eyes staring up at her, “she looks like an old friend of Alexander's. Mr Burr.”

Mischief shone in Theodosia's eyes and she smiled as if you say 'but of course'. Her amber skin seeming to glow in the light streaming through the kitchen window. What a funny thing a mother’s pride was. Eliza nodded towards the ceiling, to indicate that in another part of the house, a baby slept, “Philippa is a good sleeper.”

“You’re lucky,” Theodosia took Theo back as Eliza busied herself with tea and cake as was only right for a guest. “Philippa…”

“After my father. Phillip Schuyler.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

There was nothing to be sorry for. Eliza still stared down the road when her mother came to visit and expected her father to be following after her. She would have named her daughter after him if he had been here, because that was how things were supposed to be done. One of these days, the army would come home. She had to be sure. 

Philippa grew so fast, her head overrun by a mass of curls, her face freckled, her eyes settling into a deep green colour that had to come from Alexander’s side of the family. Theo had the tight bush of hair which Burr had always shaved off, though her complexion was much lighter than his, more like her mother’s. The two girls played together in the garden, fat little legs still seeking the will to stand, while their mothers watched them like hawks, caught in the uncomfortable understanding that there were no siblings coming. Eliza could not imagine what it would be like to not have sisters, so she let Theo fill that role. 

“The last few scouts came back this morning,” Theodosia said. That was her position in amongst the chaos, trying to be sure that what they thought had happened really had happened, “Eliza, I’m sorry but-“

“I don’t want to hear it.” Eliza said. Truly, she did not. She did not want to know how Theodosia could be so calm without husband or lover to console her. She was certain that if Alexander left this earth, she would know. This was not enough. “Look around, Theodosia. How lucky we are to be alive right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Margaret Shippen is often known as Peggy Shippen, but this story already has a Peggy and this isn't the last we're going to see of her so she's Margaret here. I don't think she and Eliza were friends historically, but hey ho.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the courts built themselves up and strengthened their foundations, so did everything else.

As the courts built themselves up and strengthened their foundations, so did everything else. Women were recruited to establish a postal service throughout the state, the wives of city merchants found their husbands’ old contacts, and sent letters to farming families to reestablish trade. No one starved, Eliza didn’t realise what a miracle that was until after their food supply was secured. 

“Of course, there has never been much difference between farmers and farmers wives. They continue on as before, though with a greater workload,” Peggy explained as she shuffled through the facts and figures of goods leaving and entering the city. She had torn the lower half from all her skirts, and now walked the streets with her ankles bared and brazen. 

Catherine made a face, “a greater workload is putting it mildly. What with the…defections.”

Perhaps women had always been the strong ones, perhaps the loss of their men was one too many hardships to bear, but as the first women made their way to New York from the southern states one thing seemed certain: slavery was a thing of the past. 

“And a good thing too!” Eliza had more faith in abolition than either of her sisters, who heard the news of revolts with furrowed brows. There was nothing to be done, once a wave has begun to break it takes an act of God to stop it. The great plantations of the south would be torched or reclaimed by the people who had toiled the Earth in shackles. If nothing else came from the Vanishment, at least America could say it had untied its hands from the whips and chains of oppressors. 

Great were the number of former slaves who came to New York with wide open eyes and hunger to see the world in all its glory. For many of them, freedom had never been theirs in any capacity, and they walked with uncertain feet amongst the women who for so long had kept them tied by chains and money. They were free of slavery, they were free of the curse of being women in a man’s world. 

No one could say what had become of the slaves in the Caribbean, the islands were too far south and it would take some years before the knowledge of long distance sea travel was reclaimed in great enough numbers for shipping routes to be re-established. Eliza crossed her fingers and hoped that her husband had been spirited back to the land of his birth, to write poetry and clerk for quarrelsome businessmen under the sweltering sun. In the meantime, she sealed up what sugar she had tight and bid a fond farewell to the days in which it had been an easily accessible commodity. Of all the news that could have upset America at such a time, it was perhaps not unexpected that the loss of sugar in one’s morning coffee caused the greatest stir. 

To spread news, you need newspapers. This was a position more easily filled than those of the women who kept the law, for any fool was capable of stringing a few words together for the sake of a story. Indeed, the world seemed full of women desperate to watch their words given flight, and it didn’t take long for queues of hopefuls to spring up outside the offices of anyone with a printing press. 

Eliza liked the normality of sitting down in the kitchen with a broadsheet in her hands, discovering what was going on outside the four walls of her house. Theodosia would bring a fresh stack with her most mornings, and once they were done reading, the girls were free to tear them to shreds before they became kindling for the fire. Some afternoons she would write letters to Alexander, asking if he had heard that the price of grain was sure to rise over the next year or that Mrs Clinton favoured renewing American ties with Britain, only to arrive at the post office in the city centre with no idea where to send it.

“Where do you think the army is?” Eliza asked. 

Theodosia was a sensible woman, and kinder than she would like to believe herself. She spared Eliza the speech on how their men were gone forever, though the sentiment was still audible, “Eliza, I do not believe that the men of this Earth could have vanished into thin air, but until such a time as things are shown to be otherwise, we must assume they are nowhere.”

Angelica saw greater things in the written word. She tried her hand as a writer for the papers, but found the happenings of daily life in New York too tame a subject matter for her mind. She pulled women into her orbit, Margaret Shippen, Martha Washington, Lucy Knox, Esther de Berdt, Dolley Payne, and together they sat down to answer the great question of who should lead them all into the future. 

“You know, if a society of men had been left leaderless for so long, they would have descended into bloodshed,” Lucy Knox announced proudly across the Schuyler drawing room. She had auburn hair, dark eyes and a wild sense of certainty always hovering about her. Eliza did not doubt she was right. 

Esther de Berdt was less sunny in her disposition, a little whisp of a thing whose umber complexion seemed determined to slip her into the background of every room. She clucked over Peggy’s records of mercantile activity in the city with increasing sourness, bending Martha Washington’s ear whenever she wished to make her voice heard, “we need to handle our financial situation.”

“Are we a nation of states? What’s the state of our nation?” Theodosia barked over all their heads when the talk of hypotheticals grew too unwieldy for anyone to make sense of. 

Angelica’s eyes lit up at the rallying cry. Her and Theodosia were to be true allies, and no matter anyone else’s efforts, stately Martha Washington favoured Angelica in a way no other affection of hers could match. They could not deny the allure of the old General's wife, though it was agreed that no woman could be expected to fully fill her husband's position in society, this was an exception they were all happy to allow. Martha was broad shouldered and straight backed as any soldier, her long black hair was always neatly braided to keep it out of her eyes. She was firm and fair until tested, when she cracked like musket fire and brought them all to heel. 

So Martha Washington was their leader, and they her obedient servants. Spurred by the flood of theory and the need for practicality, this small council of women began to pull articles and opinions into a cohesive whole. Starting with the Declaration of Independence, and working outwards, they sent drafts to all thirteen colonies, rewrote and adjusted their words. They spread themselves across each other’s houses, and Eliza watched from a distance as great women made history. 

Martha Washington was skilled at compromise, Angelica Schuyler provided high minded ideals, Theodosia Bartow would always be quick to temper idealistic nonsense with effective action, Lucy Knox looked at their internal security with a sharp eye, Esther de Berdt had a keen sense for the finances of a fully-fledged nation, Dolley Payne ensured they never forgot the plight of the common folk and Margaret Shippen could play devil’s advocate to them all until they had formed a doctrine as agreeable as any that could be imagined. 

“I think,” Martha said, carefully laying aside a missive sent from the Virginian central authority, “that we have formed a basis for government.”

Such a cheer of delight sprang up from their little band! It was only a matter of time until the public began trying to pick this new constitution apart. There could be no true formation of a government until they had the people on their side. There would need to be elections held and taxes collected, an agreement between the legislative and executive branches and the judiciary that had established itself independently. They had no choice but to take up arms – Angelica’s weapon of choice was the pen. 

“You’re succinct, persuasive,” Angelica invited Theodosia over for dinner at the Schuyler Mansion to beg for her assistance. 

As if Theodosia needed any persuading. Eliza laughed to see her sister, ready to launch into an extended philosophical debate on the nature of government, stopped short by a nod of the head, “of course I’ll help you, but for this to succeed there is someone else we need.”

For a moment, Eliza worried that Theodosia meant her, for her friend turned to fix her with a knowing stare. “Who is it who writes so well for the Bugle?”

Phillis Wheatley was an old woman, and a poet by trade whose emancipation from the slave trade predated the Vanishment. She stood in the entrance hall of the house Angelica had once shared with her husband, a great unwieldy house that required a number of servants to properly maintain, and took the constitution from her hostess’s hands with weary resignation. “What did you have in mind?”

“A series of essays, anonymously published, defending the document to the public.” Angelica said. 

“No one will read it.”

“That’s why we need you.”

In the end, Phillis managed five essays before her age became too heavy a burden for her to bare. She appeared under the name Publius along with Angelica and Theodosia, but hers was the only style that most people could recognise. That was enough to gather the interest they needed, to get heads turning when new essays were published. They spurred debate, sometimes more than they set it to rest, but by nature of assuming that they would all be in this together, they encouraged people to believe that when they argued, they did so in favour of the whole nation. 

The work was spread more or less equally – Angelica writing forty one essays and Theodosia thirty nine over a matter of months. Eliza would take Philippa with her to pick up Theo in the mornings, so that the child would not be abandoned while her mother worked for the betterment of the country. Domestic life had always been the sum total of Eliza Hamilton’s expectations of the world, she did not expect history to have her any other way and so she could not find it in her to resent her friend and sister for succumbing to higher thinking in her presence. 

Nearly two years old, Theo was unsure on her feet but with an impressive vocabulary for one so young. If she could wriggle out of Eliza’s sight she would be found in the library, flicking through the pages of books half her size and eager to be taught how to read. Philippa would stand a way off from her not-quite-sister, determinedly upright. If she could find something to break, she would break it, and laugh at her mother for being foolish enough to think a scolding would be enough to stop her doing it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of new characters!! Yay!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the army never came back, the war was never won or lost.

As the army never came back, the war was never won or lost. No more men had been sent from Britain, either because they could be spared or because the Vanishment was an all-encompassing flood. When Theodosia’s scouts returned from their exploits across New England, she sent them south, calling forth delegates to convene in New York and between them form some measure of government around the constitution they had fought so hard to see ratified.

It was a messy business, and one that Angelica reveled in. “The Nation needs me,” she would say, rushing out of the door at odd hours with a stack of papers tucked under one arm. Martha Washington stepped seamlessly from her position as leader of the constitutional committee to the de facto leader of their little band of rebel states, perhaps by nature of having spent time on the battlefield, perhaps because everyone knew that she was already the centre of gravity for active policy. Eliza found her to be a calming presence, not easily ruffled and serious in her considerations – she had all the manner of a leader.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Martha shrugged over dinner with the Schuylers, “I went to sleep in a camp full of men, and when I woke up my George was gone and the camp was empty.” It was a story that could be told by any number of women across America. It wasn’t special, but they were speaking to the wife of the General and so they must pretend it was extraordinary. 

Talk of elections swept the streets. It was an odd feeling to go to a hall and put a tick next to a name in the understanding that she might be helping choose their next leader, but Eliza was a land owning woman, and this was part of her duty to her country. It felt like too much, she had never received an education in politics and she didn’t have the same appetite for the written word as Angelica, nor the practical involvement with the life of working women as Peggy. 

“The world turned upside down,” Angelica muttered gleefully into her history books, “there was so much war, you know? So much fighting. Look at us sitting down and solving our problems like women. With words, and patience.”

Angelica had no patience. For weeks after the election, she hounded the post office, convinced that if she shouted at the right person, the rest of the vote count would magically appear before her eyes. She needn't have worried, they all knew the presidency would fall to Martha Washington, and Angelica picked up a New York congressional seat with ease. 

“Are you ever going to do anything with yourself?” Theodosia asked, “you cannot sit in this house forever.”

Eliza ignored the question. Theodosia took it upon herself to educate the girls, as she educated many girls. She was all about knowledge, that women, reconnaissance and their children. Teaching seemed an odd choice for someone who had done what she did for their country, but she proceeded as if perfectly satisfied with her station. She had even taken to sitting down with grown women and trying to fill in all the gaps that had been so willfully left in their understanding of the world. When asked why she did not run for office, she fixed Eliza with a wry smile and explained that if a system needs criticism, providing it is that much more difficult from within. 

“You would have thought they would at least have found Deborah Sampson by now,” Eliza snapped after Theodosia had made one too many references to the quiet life of a housewife that she was still living. It seemed the only way to bite back. There had been a woman in the army, or one that they knew of, perhaps many more hidden away without record, and still there was no first had account from the field. 

Theodosia had stared her down quietly, the way she did when Theo raised her hand to ask a difficult question. “I knew Private Sampson. He had the body of a woman, that much is true, but not the heart of one.”

He. Eliza didn’t know what to make of that. She dragged Theo and Philippa through to the drawing room to practice piano and French, then down the street to fit them for dresses and breeches. If this was all she was good for. She would do it right. 

Alexander played the piano, he and John Laurens would take one too many bears and then pass many happy evenings playing familiar tunes together. They had always been flustered when caught in the act, apologising for their terrible singing, though Eliza found their harmonies lovely to listen to. She hoped that wherever they were, they were together, for she hated to think of Alexander as Vanished without a friend.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning was misty, six years after they had woken up to a world without men.

The morning was misty, six years after they had woken up to a world without men. Eliza had been on her way to market, to see Peggy and purchase groceries. This was normal, it still didn’t feel normal but what now passed for mundane never would. Her daughter was growing up without servants and without the pressure of dignity that had dogged Eliza's childhood. Philippa knew there was a social line dividing her from the daughters of women who grew up poor, but she had no idea how wide it might have been. More than that, she was growing up without a father and without any understanding of what a father was.

No one had a father, not even Eliza. To hold faith that Vanished was not the same as gone was to entertain the possibility that every man had up and fled one morning because he did not like what was set before them, and that was enough to remove them from the responsibilities they had left behind permanently. In her worst moments, she would rage at Alexander for having abandoned her, and curse her own foolishness for thinking a man like him could ever stay loyal. 

She passed figures in the mist, familiar faces no longer set in stone by the requirements of decorum. Women wore breeches and suits and skirts and had long flowing hair and tight buns and close cropped bobs. There comes an age when a child begins to realise the full extent of their agency, and so the fledgling liberation of an entire sex was marked by all manner of experimentation into how a person could choose to look. 

Up ahead was a slim silhouette, short and neat. The head clean shaven, the cut of its clothes precise, unobtrusive. There was a familiarity to it, but one Eliza barely dared to entertain.

 _I know him_ , she thought, _that can’t be_. She dropped the basket she had been carrying and ran to catch up, “pardon me, are you Aaron Burr, sir?”

“That depends. Who’s asking?” Eliza looked at Burr and saw Theo’s eyes staring back at her. Her breath caught and her hands, unsure of what to do with themselves, came up to cradle his cheeks, to be sure that she was not going mad. 

Burr flinched away from her, his face blank. A thousand questions ran through Eliza’s mind at once, but she hadn’t the voice for them. She was looking at the first of many men to return to New York, of that she was sure. Soon enough the streets would be flooded with them, and the world would return to how it had initially intended itself to be and that would be enough. 

“It _is_ you,” she cried, “oh Burr! Burr how…? But you…?”

A flicker of recognition crossed Burr’s face, “Elizabeth Hamilton?”

She led him through the streets, the market forgotten, the whole world forgotten save the possibility she held by the hand. They moved with speed, too fast for anyone to lock onto them and be sure of what they saw. 

“Theodosia! Theo!” Eliza let herself into the Bartow household as easy as anything, this was the other half of her home. She rounded the corner to the kitchen and realised that she half expected Philippa to come barreling around the corner. 

It was just mother and daughter sat at breakfast that morning, dipping toes into the beginnings of a political education. Theo was old enough to start to take an interest, and far too young to know what it was to have a father. Theodosia though, she knew about husbands and lovers and all the things men could do. She looked up, first at Eliza and then to the man behind her, and her disbelief crumbled into dust. 

Theodosia Bartow accepted miracles entirely as they were. She had found freedom in a world without men and wonder in a world that would give her back the one man she could see to be missing from the fabric of her life. Eliza swallowed the jealousy nipping at her fingertips and took Theo aside, they played piano in the drawing room and spoke French to one another. Theo loved French dearly, she would speak nothing but if it were possible. It seemed foolish to try to explain to her that the man in the kitchen had been her father, it seemed even more foolish to explain that he was a man, “who is she?” Theo asked with honest curiosity. What could be said?

“Where are the others?” Eliza asked when she found she could hold her tongue no longer. Burr and Theodosia had had their space, and now she needed her own. She helf her breath and waited for the secrets of the Vanishment to be spilled, the hiding place identified. The scouts had to have missed something, the proof was staring her in the face. 

Burr shook his head, “Hamilton, I have the body of a man, but not the heart.”

Eliza stared at Burr, dumbfounded. To walk back into their lives like a promise that only went and broke on first testing. How disloyal, and here she was watching her brief hopes go up in smoke. Helpless.

“You are a woman?”

Theo seemed confused, “what else would she be?”

“I am nothing. I am whatever I need to be. It has suited me very well to be seen as a man for most of my life, I can’t say I have ever had much cause to contest it.” 

Theodosia had no faith and she was rewarded for it. Her house once again looked whole. Burr caused quite the stir, of course. For as long as he (She? They?) lived there would be talk of a prolonged legacy for the United States. No one much liked to talk about the alternative, they all assumed they would get there when the need arose. 

People came from all over the city to confirm that the stories were true. Lucy Knox shook Burr’s hand with such enthusiasm that she looked likely to cause a broken arm as she babbled about war heroes and deserved honours. Burr was never one to refuse honours, especially when offered on a silver platter. They talked at length about the years they had spent hiding in hedgerows and wondering if they dared come back to New York. They were not the only person who had all the appearance of a man but that did not mean the world was not dangerous for people like them; and the ever cautious Burr would not risk their life without being sure they were making a good gamble. 

As their president, Martha Washington was keen to make Burr’s acquaintance, starting with questions of battle and the Vanishment and finding a story rather similar to her own. Angelica and Esther were a little more pragmatic, diving straight towards questions of fertility. Burr shut them down before they could find their way to the breeding programme Eliza had heard them discussing over dinner just the night before. 

“I love my wife, and I have been without her for quite long enough.”

Theodosia rolled her eyes but there was no malice in her. Just as she said, it is easier to criticise something from the side-lines. Technically she and Burr were not married, but in a world that had destroyed the bonds of matrimony that had dictated their way of life, this seemed a moot point. 

It left them in uncomfortable silence, Angelica bouncing Philippa impatiently on her knee and offering her sweets that Eliza would never have allowed. 

“Was my father like Mrs Burr?” Philippa asked, wide eyed in wonder at having met her not-quite-sister’s new parent. 

Eliza needed a moment, she needed to breathe. She had not realised that her and Theodosia had formed a partnership that had now been broken until she was standing on the sidelines of her love. Now more than ever, she was alone. 

She shook her head, “your father liked Burr very much, but they were very different people. Your father was more like Aunt Angelica.”

“I like Aunt Angelica,” Philippa sulked for three days, angry that she had been robbed of a second aunt who would shower her with affection and encourage her recklessness. Precocious children grow up to make history, but they are a handful for their poor mothers.

Theo arrived on their doorstep holding her father’s hand. Burr smiled carefully at Eliza, wary of all the distance that lay between them. She remembered at her wedding, they had bordered on apologetic and indifferent the whole night. Sorry I am here but I am here, get used to it. Burr was cautious, but happy to exist, Alexander demanded the world make space for him. 

“I would like to continue my law practice,” Burr said. Of course, they thought they could arrive after years of absence, and just pretend the world hadn’t changed in the time they’d been away. It was always so much easier to be left behind. 

Dying is easy, living is harder. Alexander was not dead, Eliza didn't light candles for him. "Good,” she said, “we are in need of practiced lawyers.”

Silence fell between them, Burr let Theo go to play with Philippa. Eliza could tell they were waiting for something from her. The penny still had to drop.

“Do you need money for the venture? I’m sure my sister would be happy to fund a well educated lawyer in the city, I can put you in contact if you like.”

Burr shook their head, “Angelica does not like me much. And I have money of my own, I even have a property set aside that I can run my practice from. But I’m in dire need of assistance.”

The penny dropped, “You mean me?”

“But of course. Alexander spoke with such reverence of the letters you would write him. I need a writer for now, who can learn as she goes.”

That had never been her ambition. Eliza had never had much in the way of ambition of her own, she was content to sit aside, be supportive, raise a family. Not cause any fuss. Burr made to leave, resting a reassuring hand on her shoulder, “think about it.”

When Theodosia and Angelica had needed a writer, they had fled to the papers. Eliza did not know what to make of a person who would disappear for several years only to return and select the most unlikely of scribes. Alexander had been a writer, that was part of the reason she had fallen in love with him, but no one had ever thought to tell her that she might have picked up some of his skill with the quill along the way. 

Catherine had no opinion on the matter, “do what you want. Your father’s money is available if it’s money you need.”

Angelica was torn, “Burr? They’re nothing but trouble. But the law is such a noble calling, you could learn so much Eliza.”

Peggy, as usual, had a better sense of the logistics of such a position, “it would be hard work, and you might find yourself defending people who do not deserve it. But you _are_ a good writer, Eliza, and you could do a lot of good. You have a talent for protectiveness.”

She made her final decision deep in the bowels of a warm summer night, when she couldn’t sleep and pacing the halls of her little house gave her no comfort. She marched over to the home of Theodosia Bartow and let herself in, because it was nearly her home too, Burr wouldn’t take that from her. She crept into the master bedroom and shook Burr awake, her skin positively pale through the night, theirs blending in so thoroughly that they might well have been no more than a pair of eyes like stars and a row of neat white teeth. 

“Eliza?”

“Aaron Burr, sir.”

“It’s the middle of the night,”

“Can we confer, sir?”

Burr sat up groggily, lit a candle that they might see her better. In the warm glow of the flame, the sleeping form of Theodosia could be seen lying next to them. Why not her? Why would Burr choose Eliza over his own wife? 

“I would like to accept your offer of the position as legal aid,” Eliza whispered. New York never sleeps, her voice did not echo through silence, it was just another note on the cacophony of the night. 

Burr smiled wide, “excellent news Mrs Hamilton.”

Eliza smiled despite herself, “yes, I think it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Burr is back! And they're non binary. Get used to them, they're in this for the long haul.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter came from a Queen Charlotte of England.

A letter came from a Queen Charlotte of England. Eliza knew this because Angelica knew this, and Angelica knew because Martha Washington knew. It was a nice change of pace, between the seemingly never ending arguments and negotiations of political life, occasionally the women who were in charge of their country found time to agree. 

The agreement was simple – do not dignify this Queen with a response. 

Burr was of the opinion they had had far too much time to agree. They had years of new laws, amendments and abolishments to go through, “so slavery’s gone?”

“Absolutely. They were so angry, Burr. They lost their men the same as the rest of us, I suppose that was the last straw. They walked out, or took over. I hear Monticello is a very different place these days.” Eliza advised by the light of a candle across her kitchen table. They had to work from home in the evenings, they had young daughters to protect. 

Burr looked like they had seen a ghost, “I forgot about Jefferson.”

There had been talk, rumours, that Europe still had men to spare. These were not corroborated by the first few sailors that dared cross the ocean, inexperienced and desperate to see the new world, but there were some who clung tight to the possibility. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin – the great Patriots who had been stranded on the other side of the Atlantic, were the talk of many a circle. The belief that they would one day return to set America back on its original intended path was strong in some. The letter from Queen Charlotte was a damning strike against such hope, as it was unlikely she would have ascended to the throne otherwise, but dear lord it was funny. 

“She thinks we still belong to her,” Angelica cackled, “silly woman. What does she take us for?”

Eliza had read the letter, laughing despite herself. _Submit to me or I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love._ What love? Queen Charlotte had never ruled this continent and she never would. “Good luck to her,” was all Eliza could think to say. She doubted Britain had a fully armed battalion to spare on them, whether they still had men to arm or not. 

The papers were full of it, the foolish Queen who thought she could return to the land of milk and honey and pick up where her father left off. It said everything that needed to be said that no one took the time to question the validity of a Queenship where a King had once stood, even two years ago they might have done, but it had become normal to them. Femininity was everywhere, and everything. 

Half way down the third page, a note was made of the continued lack of evidence of a male presence in Europe. It didn’t seem to ruffle many feathers. Eliza would sometimes look at Burr, across the little office in mid-town Manhattan that they shared during the day, and ask where they thought all the men of this world might be. 

Burr blinked, “they’re gone, Eliza.”

“But gone where?”

“Just…gone. Providence moves in mysterious ways”

“That can’t be it, Burr. That’s not enough.”

But Burr disagreed. They shrugged their shoulders and asked her to pass them a stack of letters for a murder trial they would be undertaking the following week. Eliza looked back at the indictment she was pouring over and returned to her business of trying to pry apart the loopholes from the clause.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's commented and left kudos so far. You guys are the realest <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Queen Charlotte’s letter was not the only correspondence to make it across the Atlantic

Queen Charlotte’s letter was not the only correspondence to make it across the Atlantic. A ship from France brought a last letter from Benjamin Franklin that had spent the years since the Vanishment languishing in a French port, trying to set sail. It spoke of allyship in the revolution, funding and the difficulties in ensuring it. 

It was a relic from a past life, jarringly out of touch with the world they were now living in. Angelica had better things to do than waste too much time mourning a man she never knew and had presumed dead for years, but Eliza watched the letter be passed around the rest of congress with solemn reverence. 

“Do you think the French might still be willing to send us money?” Esther Reed asked, forever caught up in the particulars of government finance. 

Dolley Payne pried the letter out of her colleagues’ hands and passed it to the President to be tucked away and treated as ancient history, “come now, ladies. We have work to do.”

The more modern letters that crossed the ocean spoke of a situation quite similar to that in America. In Britain, Charlotte had succeeded her father when he was absent from the palace one morning, and another election had been called to replace the parliament that had been lost. It sounded as if little had changed, save the gender of the establishment and Eliza had to wonder, as she listened to Theodosia explain monarchy to Philippa and Theo to the children’s great confusion, why they had not tried to do more with the redistributed reigns of government. 

In France, popular outrage against the aristocratic class had been kicked into over drive, though the guillotines that had promised at a time to be the hallmark of the revolution appeared to have been tidied away. Eliza knew this because of the letters that started coming, first addressed simply to Hamilton and then more definitely for her, from a Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles, Marquise de La Fayette. 

“That’s quite a mouthful,” Theodosia said. 

_You may call be Adrienne_ , said the letter.

Eliza knew who Adrienne was. She had met Gilbert du Motier, the man Alexander so affectionately knew as Lafayette, when the war had still been going on, and he had spoken of the wife he left behind. In his stories she had been beautiful and vivacious, daring and devoted. She wrote to Eliza with an elegance that could only be described as regal, like she was born knowing how to hold status over people and not have them hold it against you. 

Adrienne’s letters were filled with talk of revolution and fear, first for her life and then for her assets and finally for the life of her daughter. Eliza wrote back asking what could be done to help, fearing that she would be asked for money or resources that she could not provide. 

_I am simply searching for a sympathetic ear, and some indication that life goes on in the wider world. France is very wrapped up in itself._ Came the response. Eliza took up the offer eagerly, stashing letters in her desk at the office so she might take them out and reread them in her rare and much cherished moments of rest. 

“What is her daughter’s name?” Martha asked eagerly after Adrienne’s family when she heard that the Marquise was alive. George Washington and Lafayette had been close during the war, but it seemed the proximity of emotions they felt had not been passed to their wives. The letters did not come addressed to the President, after all. 

Eliza scowled at Angelica, angry at her sister for telling. She did not wish to be the go between for America and France, simply a woman writing to another woman because the deafening silence of the outside world was at times too much to bear. “Marthe Washington de La Fayette.”

Martha Washington blushed, then she tipped back her head and laughed, “I suppose Adrienne has a sense of humour most similar to her husband’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The oldest surviving child of Gilbert and Adrienne was a boy called Georges Washington de Lafayette. As I was gender bending anyway it seemed only fitting to swap the kid's namesake.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Abigail Adams stepped off the boat in New York harbour, no one was there to meet her.

When Abigail Adams stepped off the boat in New York harbour, no one was there to meet her. They all heard about it sometime after, in weeks or days, “It took two days for me to find out!” Angelica raged, “two days!”

It was a full week before anyone made it known to Eliza that Mrs Adams was back on American soil. By then, the papers were abuzz with talk of what this wife of a former great mind might do. Old letters were brought forward, and old acquaintances interrogated for evidence of a political leaning one way or the other. 

“I mean, many smart men married less smart women. They liked that, you know? It made them feel in control,” Theodosia said, as much to the paper before her as to Eliza. She was skeptical of putting people in charge just because of their associations, Burr was outright incensed by the idea.

“She shall have to prove herself politically.”

Privately, Eliza thought that Mrs Adams would be well suited to government. They had been introduced by Angelica over Catherine Schuyler's dinner table, and it had been a great comfort to meet a woman who was steady and cautious without being frail. Amongst the hubbub of political friends Angelica kept, it felt like something of a miracle. 

“They seem very driven,” Mrs Adams had said of the women who had built a government, with a small smile that Eliza returned.

“They have done great things.”

“I do not doubt it. Government is a tricky business.”

Abigail Adams stepped in to temper the rage that whipped around New York every time congress was in session. She held firm to the tenants of the constitution she could not lose and let her fingers slip over that which she deemed less necessary. It infuriated and delighted Angelica, to see someone go through her hard work with such a fine toothed comb and solid moral standing.

“You remember those essays Phillis, Theodosia and I wrote? She read every single one.” Angelica said, proudly, a copy of the Federalist pinned under her arm. It didn’t matter that Abigail Adams did not agree with everything that had been said in them, it only mattered that she had done the reading.

Mrs Adams could not be elected to political office in mid-term, so her political services were named ‘voluntary’ by congress. As if by existing, and listening, and caring she didn’t command the attention of every woman of power in the land. It was impossible to shake the image of a bygone era that seemed to emanate from her in the eyes of common women. If Martha Washington was a legend who made it out of war alive, Abigail Adams was a direct link to everything they had lost. She had known Franklin and Jefferson, and in their absence held court with the Queen of England.

“How did you manage to bow before her?” Angelica and Theodosia asked at once.

Abigail shrugged, and her long dark hair rippled out behind her like a river, “pride is not more important that survival, my dears.”

Eliza could tell that neither her sister nor her friend believed Mrs Adams. From the edge of the room, Burr nodded quietly, and reached for their wife. Oh what a gulf of understanding, unbridged and unbridgeable. Once upon a time Alexander had rushed off to war and Eliza had spent sleepless nights unable to understand how he could not see that life was enough.

Life was not enough for Burr, but they recognised that they could not stand in the way of its design. Theo stood between her parents, raised as much by Eliza as either of them, with a more level headed stance on the matter. “At least mother never got sent to Europe like Mrs Adams.”

Eliza quite agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abigail Adams was so great she is a proper historical fav of mine and I am aware that as the author I have full control over what happens in this story but I'm still so pleased I included her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second time the country geared up to vote, it seemed more of a practiced art than before.

The second time the country geared up to vote, it seemed more of a practiced art than before. Kinks were still present in the system, as Burr would explain ad nauseum whenever they could get Angelica’s ear. The animosity between the two of them had eased somewhat, though they would always have a talent for getting on each others' nerves. 

“I don’t suppose…only it’s been so long…you couldn’t be persuaded to share?” Angelica asked, with only the faintest trace of shame shimmering on her cheeks.

Theodosia dropped the teacups she had been carrying, spilling hot tea and yelping as she stepped on a shard. She stared Angelica down, but this was Eliza’s house and so she could not ask her to leave. “Shouldn't you be campaigning?”

It was not the first time someone had made such a request of Theodosia, and it would not be the last. There were those who muttered that she was curbing the longevity of the human race by refusing to allow free access to her husband. Perhaps they were right; babies were few and far between. There were only a small number of people left in the country with the correct apparatus for reproduction.

“You will have to ask Burr,” Theodosia met the accusations with gritted teeth.

Burr faced people with the faintest hint of a smile and a strained calm in their eyes. “I have no desire to be intimate with anyone but my wife.”

That was not the end of it, but it was the end of what Theodosia and Burr had to say on the matter. In the meantime, elections were incoming. There were more important matters to discuss than impregnation by other people’s husbands.

Angelica’s station in the government was assured. She had Martha Washington's confidence, which placed her in the running for a seat in the cabinet. This would be a new system, where trusted advisers would work alongside the President without needing to go through congress. The President herself would select the cabinet, to be sure it contained only the most knowledgeable and loyal of women.

“So Angelica will be our secretary of state; Esther will take the treasury position; Lucy will surely be named secretary of defense. Attorney general though…” Theodosia read the proposed list of cabinet positions with half an eye on her husband.

If a flash of thwarted ambition rested in Burr’s eyes, they were quick enough to cover it. “Margaret Shippen has proven herself quite adept both in the court of law and finding gaps in her Excellency’s logic. I’m sure she’ll get the position.

Theo and Philippa were at an age where their education could only proceed at a proper school. Theodosia decided that this was the moment to be done with teaching, and had decided to make her first run on congress. With her fierce wit and social prominence, it was likely she would take the New York seat she sought.

It sounded so simple, Angelica in the cabinet and Theodosia in congress. Eliza and Burr had built up a reputation, eked out of late nights and endless reading. They were known to be able defense attorneys who could see women cleared of any crime from speculation to murder. Such a standing brought all sorts of unruly and unpleasant folk to their door.

“I do not like it,” Eliza grumbled.

The clean shaven pate of Burr’s head shone in the candlelight, “the work is too much for you?”

“The work is fine. It is the people that trouble me.”

“Ah, the people.” Burr had provided another thick set of tomes to be read over the coming weeks. Some were relevant to their current cases and some where not. “I find it less tiring to separate the people from the work. People will be people no matter which side of a guilty verdict they fall on. The thrill is in uncovering the path through the law by which we will take them there.”

Philippa hung on Eliza’s arm as she went down town with Burr and Theodosia to vote. Philippa of course, didn’t care either way if she saw democracy in action or not. But Theo cared, and what one sister wants the other must have.

This time round things were more complex. They would vote for their representative, and their representative would vote for their President. Then the President would pick her cabinet. Eliza stared down the list of names before her, trying to put faces to them. The only name she recognised was Theodosia Bartow, so she voted for her friend and felt foolish that she had not been paying better attention.

They had sat up late that night, the two of them, while Burr took the girls to bed and turned in early. The counting of the votes could take some days, and the final counts from across the United States would take weeks to arrive back in the capital. Theodosia poured whiskey in their tea, till her and Eliza were silly with alcohol, giggling over fond memories.

“We used to go downtown just to watch all the guys at work, my sisters and me,” Eliza sighed.

“I wish I knew Peggy better.”

“You would like Peggy.”

“I like all your family, Eliza.” Theodosia seemed to glow brighter than the few scant candles they had sat at the table like this, waiting, laughing. Not for the first time, Eliza was struck by the fact that her friend was very beautiful. Every angle about her seemed to have been cut and sanded from burnished marble, but there was too much light in her eyes for the appearance of stone to hold much sway. So confident was she, so sure of her mind, as one can only be when every opinion is one’s own and has been carefully crafted from experience and reading.

And yet, thinking of Theodosia as beautiful always felt like a vanity to Eliza. Angelica had once commented that they had a similar look and the notion had stuck. They had the same long, black hair, the same high cheekbones, a similar complexion. They looked different enough that it was unlikely anyone would mistake one for the other, but still, there was a resemblance. It was not unheard of for the pair of them to be mistaken as sisters. 

“I would share them with you,” Theodosia breathed, just as the sun was beginning to rise. Eliza did not need to ask, she reached across the table to take her friend’s hand, and felt a stab of guilt to her lower gut. Such is life.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seemed so long ago that women had had cause to go running from their homes, in fear of drunk and cruel husbands who had granted them no safety.

It seemed so long ago that women had had cause to go running from their homes, in fear of drunk and cruel husbands who had granted them no safety. Angelica spoke of it as a fact of yesteryear with such damning certainty that it seemed all evil left on the Earth should vanish at her voice.

Abigail was less certain. She sat in Theodosia's drawing room, her mouth twisting in doubt. “Cruelty was not the sole vestige of men, my dear.”

Theodosia was busy these days. She had won her position in congress, Abigail had won a position as Vice President, and Angelica had been appointed Secretary of State. Meanwhile Burr and Eliza toiled through the grime and much of the law. In the midst of all these high minded ventures, their houses were stuffed to bursting with paper and opinion.

“What does it mean, to be Secretary of State?” Peggy asked.

“Oh you know,” Angelica waved a hand, her head deep in some matter that had been passed to her by the President, “foreign policy and the like.”

“Then who handles the money?”

“Esther Reed is Secretary of the Treasury.”

Peggy occupied the strangest position in New York. Part lawyer, part law enforcement part merchant. She handled the transit of goods amongst the city, selling nothing personally. It was a position that required the utmost respect from the people she walked amongst, and a willingness to get one’s hands dirty. She would often arrive, out of the blue and at odd hours, with filth on her cheeks and her breeches torn. Sometimes Eliza felt like the last woman left wearing dresses in all America.

“This is Maria,” Peggy said. She stepped into Catherine Schuyler’s home one morning, smelling strongly of dung and followed by a pretty girl dressed in red.

If only Angelica had been there to see them, the first time that is. She would go on to say that Peggy and Maria shared a face, when you squinted hard enough, though Eliza never saw it. Peggy was bright and open, Maria was closed off, unsure of herself but with a dry sense of humour once she could be persuaded to unwind.

“My husband would like you,” Eliza remarked. Maria blushed prettily, Peggy raised her eyebrows, as if the affections of Alexander Hamilton had been the problem all along.

“I’m surprised it hasn’t been happening more,” Burr said, as they waited for their session in court to begin. It was a simple case of property ownership, possession was nine tenths of the law, they would be fine. “With no men around, you would have thought everyone would be more open to exploring that side of themselves.”

Eliza thought on Theodosia, sitting in the light of a bare few candles, the warmth of her hands. She thought of Burr caring for her daughter as their own and not begrudging her space in their house or business. She did not like how it made her feel, she did not want to be shared, she wanted Alexander, home a whole.

What surprised her was that Angelica had made no match. Peggy had always been primed to meet someone when the time was right, but the oldest Schuyler sister had a hunger for romance, a deep desire to be held. She would not have asked Theodosia so brazenly for the use of her husband if did not. Eliza pressed her about it, as gently as she could, and received icy stares for her trouble. “I have so much work to do.” Angelica snapped. And pressed onwards, drawing up treaties, sending letters to France, Spain, Prussia. Anyone who would listen. That’s what Secretaries of State are for.

“What if they never come back, Abigail?” Eliza asked. She was supposed to be asking about the Supreme Court, and what it would take to get her client in or out of their attentions. But somewhere her tongue slipped.

Abigail looked at her, really looked. Abigail Adams, Vice President of the United States of America, did not look at anyone without meaning it, she let you know she was listening. She valued everyone’s time. “My dear, I do not think they can all have up and vanished into nowhere, our menfolk. But the more time passes the more we must accept that we must live like this or not at all."

And what of future generations? There were a handful of women in the world who had been presumed male when they were born, but it was not enough to sustain them all. Not when every child born was unequivocally female. Philippa and Theo were getting so big, and they belonged to the last of the girls who were born in a time when peers were not hard to come by.

“Something will give,” Burr advised, and Eliza didn’t know if they were talking about the case or the problem of succession. “Wait for it.”

That was their answer to everything.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas Jefferson came back. Of all the strange things Eliza had seen over the past eight years, that had to be the strangest.

Thomas Jefferson came back. Of all the strange things Eliza had seen over the past eight years, that had to be the strangest. She had been down at the pier with Philippa, visiting Aunt Peggy, watching the ships roll in. They were more frequent now, the deficit of knowledge that had prevented American women from heading across the ocean having been largely corrected. But most of the boats that passed came bearing cargo of a more lucrative nature.

Still no slaves, they now knew for sure. The Caribbean islands that had once served as mighty plantations had been reclaimed by their indentured inhabitants after the men had Vanished. They did not take kindly to those of their oppressor class stepping foot on their land, and the few women who had braved the journey reported that they had seen no men. They were not hiding in the Caribbean, the search continued on.

Having never seen Thomas Jefferson before, Eliza did not realise the full nature of the spectacle she witnessed. A figure stood on the prow of a ship, dressed in a gown of deep purple with a mop of unruly black curls that formed a cloud around the face. The beard is what gave the newcomer away as a woman at heart if not in the customary eyes of society. The excited shrieking is what gave this woman away as someone extraordinary.

“What’s going on?” Peggy peered out over the port. This was her queendom, nothing happened here anymore without her say so.

Eliza had shrugged, Philippa had looked on in wonder. Maria seemed to appear out of nowhere at Peggy’s shoulder, ready to gasp at the magnitude of the moment. Sometimes it paid to blend into the middle distance, not so far that nobody noticed you, but far enough that few enough people would care. Maria knew many things that Eliza would never find a full explanation for, the contours of Thomas Jefferson’s face truly was the least of it.

Philippa had always found the controlling hand of authority difficult to come to terms with, but that moment was the first time in her little life that she broke through the constrictions placed upon a child to hold fortune in her own two hands. No sooner had the name left Maria’s lips than the seven year old tore herself from her mother’s side.

She would never quite be stitched back into place, though Eliza would try. That was the first time this young mother had to watch her progeny disappear before her eyes, and it would not be the last. The advantage for Eliza was that this time round, she knew where Philippa was headed.

The government building in New York City was a rather drab affair. Both congress and the senate were apt to move from place to place, wherever better lodgings were found. Philippa had something of her Aunt Angelica about her, something sharp and itching for a challenge. The two would always know where to find each other.

Eliza crossed the threshold of the cabinet room moments after daughter, and immediately felt she was not supposed to be there. Philippa looked at the great women before her as if she were already their equal, her back straight and her breeches stretching out her legs. She seemed taller than the child she was.

It was an effort to retain the sob that curled through Eliza’s lungs as she looked on her child and saw her husband. Alexander, she thought, would be proud of this, and that would be enough.

“Miss Hamilton?” Angelica spoke before someone else might close the door in Philippa’s face.

“Thomas Jefferson’s coming home.”

Disbelief, there was always disbelief. They lived their lives in a moment beyond full comprehension, pretending everything was fine, pretending they weren’t all still grieving. Martha Washington looked stern, “Thomas Jefferson was a man.” As if that was ever enough of an explanation.

Philippa would not be shushed, “Her ship is in the harbour now, see if you can spot her!”

And that is more of less how the young Philippa Hamilton led the entire cabinet of the United States of America down to New York harbour, just to see a woman stepping off a ship. It occurred to Eliza that an awful lot of these women were not strangers to her home, Martha Washington and Abigail Adams and Angelica Schuyler. She had sat up with Esther Reed while she hashed out debt plans, laughed with Lucy Knox round Angelica’s dinner table. A little legal secretary who still wore floor length dresses and refused to believe that her husband was not coming back for her, and there she sat in the middle of the political fray.

Jefferson towered over them, her loose hair compromised by the rich fabric of her dress and the inherent refinement in her step. Eliza could smell the old money from the other end of the port, and she would know, she was from the same stock.

“What did I miss?” Jefferson drawled, like her mere existence was not a modern miracle.

There would be time for pinched lips and disapproving mutters in all the years ahead of them, for now, Jefferson was a returning hero. Abigail Adams threw herself into her arms, babbling about Paris and John and all the time that lay between the then and the now. Martha Washington shook Jefferson’s hand with the reverence one can only hold for a women of one’s home state.

“She sounds funny,” Philippa informed Theo when describing the encounter later that day.

“Philippa!” Eliza chided. Burr laughed.

Theodosia stood over all of them witch a pinched brow, “Jefferson will change much of the political landscape in New York.”

She would, absolutely. Though exposed as a woman, Jefferson had lived for so long with the status of a man that she had a tendency to forget herself in the company of her sex. Angelica found her infuriating to say the least, enraged by the power this newcomer presumed to have over all manner of government policy despite never holding office. “She expected Monticello to be waiting for her when she got back. Ha! I told her she was welcome to reclaim it from its current owners if she thought she had the strength for it. Lord knows her fortune was tied up in the crops that were farmed there before she left.”

On the ground, Theodosia would often find Jefferson in the strangest corners of the city, ingratiating herself with high born and low born women alike. It was as if she was already planning a play for a congressional seat, years away from the next election.

“Theodosia thinks she’s trouble,” Eliza said.

“She probably is,” Burr replied, “but the woman’s a genius, we’re not in a place to turn down minds like hers.”

Angelica seemed to live in Martha Washington’s townhouse. “Oh, you can have it,” she waved Eliza aside when asked about the place she used to share with her husband. Most days it seemed odd to think Angelica Schuyler ever had a husband, she was so much happier here, holding all her own cards.

Eliza laughed and declined the offer. She already had two homes. Three, if she were to count the old Schuyler mansion that Catharine managed to keep in shape, despite the gradual stoop of age curling up her spine. There were moments, rare moments but moments still, when she forgot that Theodosia was not her wife and Burr was not her husband. She more or less thought of Theo as her daughter either way.

It would have been peaceful to stop and sit, watch Angelica race toward thrilling political conclusions. Tearing through letter after letter and to know that this was a better foundation to build a country on than military might. But Eliza needed something, “I don’t suppose you’d be able to help me. With a legal matter.”

Angelica looked up with eyes wide and proud. Eliza had never felt so important in all her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't let Jefferson die...
> 
> I know I said there would be daily updates till this fic was finished BUT I'm away on holiday for two weeks as of tomorrow and I will not have access to my laptop so sorry!! Posting will temporarily halt and resume on the 30th of October. In the meantime, thank you so much to everyone who's left comments and kudos - you are all stars <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It took two weeks after her arrival in New York for Jefferson to get to the matter of house visits.

It took two weeks after her arrival in New York for Jefferson to get to the matter of house visits. She slipped through the front doors of as many congresswomen as she could manage, and refusing to be barred entry to the homes of cabinet members.

“She wouldn’t stop asking about the consolidation of national debt. I can tell she doesn’t approve but it’s not as if she’s got a better idea.” Esther’s hands trembled as she spoke, caught between cabinet meetings on her way down Broadway. She had always been a nervous woman, and Jefferson was so confident not just in her beliefs but in the support she would be provided by other corners. It could spell trouble, should they come to blows.

Lucy Knox thought Jefferson a fop, her opinions surface deep, “she shall have to grow some integrity if she wishes to survive.” Margaret Shippen agreed. Theodosia pulled a face and reminded them that votes they would not necessarily go to the person of soundest values. 

"Most women with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor."

Worry fizzled between the writers of the constitution. The easy camaraderie she found with Dolley Payne, Abigail Adams and Martha Washington was cause for concern. The four of them were dear friends, and for an un-elected woman to have the ear of the President, Vice President and an esteemed member of congress was dangerous.

There came a knock at the door, Eliza pleaded with Theo to keep Philippa out of trouble while she went to answer it.

“Mrs Hamilton,” Jefferson grinned, catlike. She was dressed in long skirts, leaning on a silver topped cane. Her hair was still untied and un-styled, falling to her waist and fanning out like a great dark halo of curls. She looked as if she might have shaved her beard since arriving in America, but it had had the indecency to grow back.

Just for a moment, Eliza hesitated, not sure what was expected of her, “I’m sorry, Ms Bartow is in congress today, she is not home.”

Confusion flashed across Jefferson’s face, “why would she be here?”

This was the house Eliza had once shared with Alexander, Theodosia and Burr had the house across town. She had forgotten. How could she have forgotten?

When Philippa stuck her head around the corner of the drawing room, Jefferson recognised her, “well if it isn’t the young lady who saw me off the boat.”

“Did you know my father?” Philippa cut so quick.

Eliza pursed her lips, “Philippa, go play with your sister.”

As a queen settling down to review the estate of a lady, Jefferson took the coffee Eliza offered. She ran a thumb over the cracked spine of a book that had been left resting upside down and open on the arm of her chair. She surveyed the stacks of papers, the ink stains on Eliza’s hands, “you must be busy.”

So busy, Eliza barely knew where to begin. She read for her own sake and for Burr’s, and for the sake of every woman who had ever been told she could not read a book. Jefferson had grown up knowing all these luxuries, but having to pretend she was other than she was. It was impossible to say who had suffered most in the time before the Vanishment, but in the present it felt like Jefferson was holding more of the cards.

“A mutual friend asked that I pass this to you,” Jefferson held out a letter, sealed with the familiar mark of the Marquise de La Fayette. Eliza reached out to take it, and for the briefest moment her fingers brushed against Jefferson’s. They looked at each other like they might build be a feeble bridge between two factions that did not want to acknowledge the other.

_My dearest Eliza, I have given this letter to my dear Thomas in the hope she will pass it to you. She was a good friend of my Gilbert’s, who in turn was a good friend of your Alexander’s. As I am friends with you both I hope I can bring the two of you together._

The letter went on for many pages, Eliza read hungrily while Jefferson sipped her coffee. Philippa was dashing across the upstairs floorboards in a great rumble, while Theo followed her with amused good grace.

Eliza set the letter down. Jefferson raised an eyebrow, “well?”

“She intends to send Marthe to stay with us when she can find safe passage. It isn’t safe in France, But Adrienne must stay.”

The shell of smugness that would prove an almost permanent fixture of Jefferson’s countenance faded for the briefest moment. “Brave woman.”

Eliza nodded. She would need to prepare their home for a visitor who could arrive at any moment, she would need to prepare her girls for the possibility of a new sister. 

Jefferson gave up the pretense of propriety and began sorting through Eliza’s papers. She rearranged nothing, but searched as if there were a treasure that could be found with enough determination. Here and there she would offer arguments and opinions on past causes and Eliza’s own notes. She spoke too fast to make note of them, like her only cause was to prove herself the smartest person in the room.

There was something there, a spark of passion and vivacity that Eliza could see Angelica coming to respect, if only she could set her politics aside. For the time being she let Jefferson talk, of law and Paris and revolution, and the world she had seen left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from holiday! Updates will now resume daily. 
> 
> Ten points to anyone who spots the 1776 reference.


	15. Chapter 15

Laws were passed and rewritten at an alarming pace. Eliza knew this because even Burr struggled to keep up with their workload while keeping on top of the changing sands they stood on. “At this rate we might as well base everything on precedent and to hell with legislation.”

Eliza grunted in agreement, closing the door with her hip and moving to her desk with a fresh stack of court rulings and government bills that had been passed, rejected, amended. From the other side of the room, Burr was creating a separate stack for her to work through. So much of her job was checking his papers against current law, trying to be sure that they were not stepping on any head of this great hydra that was evolving before their eyes.

There was rarely anyone home to look after the girls, who were passed between an endless series of schools and tutors that seemed unable to agree on how much of anyone’s education they should be responsible for. Theo took to anything that required her to plunder the recesses of her creativity, languages and literature came naturally to her, as did politics and philosophy. She was born to debate, much to Philippa’s chagrin, and it was hard not to notice the rising tensions between sisters.

“Peggy and I were just the same,” Angelica reminded Eliza as they passed in the corridors of what had been completed of the new capital building.

Eliza remembered. Many were the mornings with their tutor when Angelica had expressed some opinion only to be reminded by Peggy that there was no basis in logic for the outcomes of her arguments. Even then, the oldest Schuyler sister had been searching for a way to will the world into the existence she desired for it, while the youngest saw only what was real.

But poor Philippa was too young to know that she was more like her father than either aunt. She was good at mathematics and showed surprising talent for one so young when it came to memorising rules and twisting them to fit her whims. “You said I was not allowed out in the garden after dark, but the moon shines so bright. You can hardly call this dark.” She wanted to match her sister in wits, she wanted to win, but Theo wanted only the thrill of the argument.

“How did you argue?” Theo would ask of Eliza and Burr’s past court cases.

“How did you win?” Philippa would want to know.

On the afternoons she could spare, Eliza played piano with the girls and spoke French with them to keep their minds sharp. Theo had no problem with either, music was just another language that one could learn to speak. She ducked through codas and complex clauses as if it were nothing. You had only to offer her the world and she would delight in all its many forms of laughter.

Philippa wanted the world before it was offered. Her French was patchy and incomplete, and her eyes glazed over when she saw the notes upon the page. Every time her fingers set upon the piano, a different tune came out.

“Read the music, dear,” Eliza mumbled, holding all her patience in the bridges of her hands.

But Philippa already knew that she had kept to the key and the time signature, everything else was less firmly defined. Less essential. She would let Theo be better at speech and music, if only she could have the last word.

Eliza set up the spare bedroom to receive Marthe whenever she might be able to make the trip from France. One of the spare bedrooms. Her house was so empty. She had anticipated having more children, hosting more wards. It was still hard to believe that she would sleep alone in her marriage bed for the rest of her days.

Letters came in from France, Adrienne sometimes frantic with worry. It seemed a very difficult escapade to smuggle a child out of the country while the rebels looked on. She would have sent Marthe with Jefferson if she could., but there was never anything so suspicious as a foreign dignitary returning to their home country when it came to those whose job it was to sniff out smugglers. So they were all consigned to wait for a barely believable window of opportunity into which they could push their plan.

Burr had no qualms with adding an extra member to their family so long as she was well behaved, Theodosia was too busy to form a proper opinion. Theo was excited at the prospect of having a fluent French speaker with which to play with and Philippa was wary of possible intruders on her sister’s affections.

“You’ll still love me the most,” Eliza did not need to correct her, Philippa spoke it as a fact.

Work, work, work. Tutors, Theo in love with the words on the page, Philippa working out how to rewrite them without robbing them of all meaning. The more time passed, the more Eliza and Burr saw of each other and the less they saw of Theodosia. It was to be expected. Thomas Jefferson lurked around every corner, threatening to snatch away the President’s attentions once and for all. And where would that leave the rest of them?

“Take a break,” Burr pleaded with Theodosia, on grey afternoons when the bags beneath her eyes and the white in her hair seemed most prominent.

As on any other day, Eliza had Burr’s back. That was her job. “Come away with us for the summer, let’s go upstate. We can all go stay with my mother.”

Catharine Schuyler lived most of her life in Albany, New York city was too much for her. Peggy and Maria regularly found time to slip out of town to visit, Angelica never did. Eliza felt like she should have been able to do more, surely there was not so much for her in New York that she would neglect her own family.

Theodosia glared them down, “you have rehearsed this.”

Of course they had. Theodosia Bartow was a resilient mind, she would not be persuaded to abandon her station by a spur of the moment passion to leave the city. Besides, what would happen to their legal practice if both Eliza and Burr were gone?

What a wretched system they had inherited! What fools they were to try to fit themselves into the mould that had come before rather than try to build the world on their own terms. Most of the amended legislation had done no more than switch out pronouns, so every he became a she.

“Someday the men are going to come home and we’re just going to change it all back,” Eliza grumbled. Burr looked at her like they were holding their tongue.

Philippa spotted the loophole before anyone else. She was so excited by the revelation that she nearly ran back down to the capitol to tell Angelica. “If the law only applies to women, then papa can do what they like.”

“My daughter seems to think that you could break the law with impunity,” Eliza passed the message along.

Pausing in their writing, Burr smiled a wicked smile over the endless torrent of paper they worked amongst. “I suppose you shall have to be very sure you trust me then.”

Coming home to a house dark and empty was easier than coming home to find everyone already to bed. It felt less like you were missing out on anything when you simply failed to be in the room. On nights that kept them late at the office, Eliza and Burr would return to the Hamilton home together. Safe in the knowledge that the children and Theodosia were across town in the other house that seemed to be all five of theirs at once.

“No one’s lived here in a while,” Burr grimaced, and Eliza had to stop to work out when she had last thought of these two sides of her life as separate. A long time ago. The two of them would share the master bed, hands tentatively touching below the covers where they could not be seen, and Eliza would say a silent prayed that when Alexander returned he would understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ran this through Hemingway for readability (and bc i don't have a beta so I have to rely on the internet to help me out) and it told me that like a quarter of the sentences were incredibly difficult to understand. 
> 
> But I mean, fuck Hemingway.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were months away from the next election when the fragile certainty hanging over so many of Eliza’s friends and family shattered.

They were months away from the next election when the fragile certainty hanging over so many of Eliza’s friends and family shattered. It started with Theodosia fainting on her way out of the door one morning, as the patterns of their lives were thrown out of sync.

“She needs lots of rest,” the doctor informed Eliza and Burr, spectacles slipping down her nose. “And I should like to come and see her again when she is on the mend.”

It sounded so simple, yet the nagging feeling that this was more serious than bedrest could cure was undeniable. Eliza and Burr moved their work into their living room. With Theodosia temporarily confined, the stream of political well-wishers and collaborators slowed. It seemed unlikely she would recover to secure her place in congress for the next year. Not when there were plenty of other, younger women ready and waiting to take her place.

“She isn’t old,” Burr insisted, but Eliza couldn't deny that Theodosia looked older than she was. Already, she had ten years on anyone else in their home, and the stress of political prominence had drained the colour from her hair and marred her face with lines of worry. She was still beautiful, but it was cloaked.

The girls were now ten, old enough to understand that the furtive glances their parents shared with each other were designed to keep them out of the loop. Theo slipped out of the house to go to the library, returning with medical journals stacked high in her arms. Philippa demanded answers, though it seemed no matter how honest they were with her she would never be satisfied.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t know when she will recover.” Philippa rolled her eyes whenever offered anything less than the truth. It didn’t matter if the truth was unknown, she would scorn you as a liar by omission nonetheless.

And all this between land speculators and thieves and arsonists and smugglers and embezzlers and dear lord did this city know no end to crime? Working from home, Eliza and Burr were devoid of excuses to look up from their work. The girls desperately wanted to be involved in their parents’ legal affairs, and with Theodosia so close at hand there was no need to run to the capitol for Angelica’s advice.

“I’m not dead yet,” Theodosia said, stubbornly. For once it looked like Philippa might have been given the answer she was looking for.

None of them were looking for the answer the doctor gave, two weeks later. A cancer of the stomach. It would prove fatal, but who can say for how long. Burr was silent, till the three of them were alone and they could collapse in tears upon their wife’s sickbed, begging her to keep living. “Just stay alive, that would be enough.”

Eliza knew a thing or two about how to lose a spouse, she lived it every day, after all. First you send them off and worry they will never come back. Then you open your eyes eleven years later and they’re still not home, and you are sure that if you ever give up the belief that they might one day come walking up the garden path again, you will lose everything that ties you to this mortal coil.

She sat by Theodosia’s bed for many an hour, with stacks of paper spilling from her lap to the floor. It was better like this, for all of them. Burr didn’t have to think too hard about why their wife was lying in bed, while they squirreled away downstairs. For Eliza, Theodosia’s opinion is as invaluable as ever, a window into the mind of the policy maker. 

“Thank you for keeping me company,” Theodosia smiled. Eliza wasn’t sure if she was being thanked for a day’s worth of her time or a decade. She reached out to squeeze the hand of the woman she loved best in this world, she wondered if she could be shared.

Burr’s hand on hers under cover of darkness, the fire of Theodosia’s eyes when she gazed into them, the memory of Alexander moving inside of her, whispering that he loved her and he would always love her. Where was that love now? Did his heart still beat for her, a thousand miles away? Or was he twisting his way beneath the sheets with John Laurens and the Marquis de Lafayette.

She had to be sure, she told herself, and she may not have many more chances. Eliza let Theodosia pull her in, till the bed felt like it had been built for the two of them. Was this the home she shared with Alexander or the house across town where her daughter’s sister lived? It was impossible to remember, and truth be told, she didn’t want to. The feel of another person moving in time with her, pressing lips to parts of her that had not been touched in over ten years - it was like losing herself all over again.

“Why are you crying, mama?” Theo asked. Eliza didn’t correct her. She did not have it in her to tell a child their parent was dying, she left all the hard conversations to Theodosia. She would have to learn.

“It’s ok,” Burr said. They did not think of Theodosia as something exclusively theirs, just something they were lucky enough to have. They were willing to share, some afternoons Eliza had to wonder if they were not disappointed that she wasn’t.

It was not ok. It was adultery. They took adultery cases with increasing regularity, now it was accepted that if houses were to be tied to one another it would have to be by matches of women. They should have eliminated the need for marriage, but once again they were too enthralled by the past glories of a world that no longer existed. Just for a moment, Eliza hated that Burr could pass this off so cavalier. She deserved punishment, she deserved flames.

“I have so much work to do,” Angelica apologised for the brevity of her stay but was out of the door again within half an hour of arriving. She had come to see Theodosia, to be sure that appropriatemeasures were in place for when the time came.

Burr had made sure a will was drawn up, ticking through assets till the tears broke forth and Eliza had to take the pen from their hands and keep writing. This didn’t need to be done now but it needed to be done soon. It was surreal to look upon a person and be sure that their life was limited in ways yours was not. The passing days made Theodosia frustrated with boredom.

The house seemed so quiet, and now they could be sure that there was just one house left. Wherever the other house might be in this city, it was abandoned, lost. Gone wherever men go. Burr looked at the armchairs in the drawing room, piled high with books and letters, and their face drew into a frown.

By now Eliza knew she had only to be patient and attentive, in time Burr would speak of their own accord.

“I just…I miss being in the room where it happens.” They murmured.

Eliza could not say the same. She did not miss the pressure of political respectability that the government put upon her home by choosing to meet in it so often. Burr would stand to the side and watch while the fate of the nation was decided over tea and biscuits, but they had never expressed any desire to be a part of the process.

“You could have rebuilt this country from the ground up but instead you went for same old same old. It’s practically a monarchy out here! Dear old Esther more or less wants it to be and she has far too much sway over the President’s mind than is comfortable, don’tcha think?” Jefferson exploded into their home in the name of her own campaign. She was convinced her position in congress was an inevitability. The accidents that led Eliza to stand so firmly at the centre of such a little political hurricane made her a valuable asset in such a quest, and so she was targetted.

Eliza trod carefully, she had heard too many stories of this woman from Angelica, “I suppose America will have to continue down the path she has set herself on.”

“Oh come now! Wouldn’t you like to see someone step in and find us a whole new path?”

Jefferson smiled like a shark and asked about Adrienne like one mutual friend would be enough to change a heart. If she could smell just a whiff of blood she would be on you. Eliza tightened her words and straightened her back. _Not you_ , she thought, _you do not have the compassion to do it properly._  But she bit her tongue and offered her guest biscuits.

That should have been the end of it, but Angelica and Abigail followed hot on Jefferson’s heels. It was clear they were fast losing blood into the ocean of political follies. “Martha’s stepping down,” Angelica wailed. Philippa stuck her head out of her bedroom to see what was going on.

Theodosia braved the journey downstairs, to clear aside the evidence of Burr and Eliza’s work and sit in hushed conference with her friends and allies. Burr stood in the corner of the room, watching, waiting, with such intensity that Eliza had to grab them after dinner to help get the girls to bed. They moved with a faraway look in their eye, like they had not quite managed to leave the politicking behind.

“Abigail will be our Presidential candidate,” Angelica said with finality.

“I have to resign,” no one asked Theodosia to elaborate.

“I will run for my wife’s seat.” Burr informed them all.

It was not unexpected, which is not to say it did not hurt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately Theodosia Bartow's stomach cancer can't be cured by magically disappearing men...
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's commented so far - you guys are stars! <3 If you're thinking about commenting but haven't done yet, I live for that kind of validation


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something about Jefferson drew people in, or perhaps she was following an unseen trail of blood.

Something about Jefferson drew people in, or perhaps she was following an unseen trail of blood. She won herself a seat in Congress with alarming ease; there was no telling how much mischief she might make. 

For her part, Angelica was ecstatic. “Ms Schuyler, Vice President of the United States of America,” she would introduce herself to anyone who gave her half a chance. 

Abigail had won the presidency, and Eliza knew that shewas glad of a companion with whom to share her seat of power. She had not chosen an easy cabinet for herself, and she feared their factious nature. “I thought I should choose from a range of political stand points. I should have known, it is hard enough doing what you wish when you are not fighting against the other side of the coin,” she grumbled. 

Martha had already left the city, returned to whatever was left of Mount Vernon in Virginia, expecting to find it much the same as Monticello.

“Do you think she’ll come back, if the slaves have taken over?” Angelica asked. Abigail shook her head. Eliza almost felt like she wasn’t in the room.

The room Eliza was standing in was one filled with piles of paper standing just out of her reach. Theodosia lay bed bound upstairs, Philippa tried to fight her tutors at every turn, Burr was out early and back late most days. They had won Theodosia’s old seat with little fuss. It should have been a moment of relief, but Eliza found herself upset with her circumstances.

She was not a lawyer by trade, much as she was willing to learn. She could spot discrepancies in a case but soon discovered this did not translate well into the building of a case in the first place. Clients began to flee as it became clear that she lacked Burr’s talent for talking around juries and slipping through holes in the law.

Eliza believed in the law, the law made sense. 

“They can’t do that!” Theo would huff in outrage when she heard about verdicts over dinner.

“Technically, it’s not against the law,” Philippa would shoot back. The girls were beginning to become women. Theo lengthening into a lithe little thing like her father, while Philippa was stockier, more heavyset. Had they been sons and had this been another time, they would be fast approaching the age at which they would be sent away to college. In the here and now, such systems had fallen out of fashion. Eliza knew that if they were to receive the proper education they deserved, they would need to have a place secured for them in New York.

When would she find the time? Theodosia needed company and care, she needed the feel of another body again her own and Eliza was happy to oblige. But Eliza needed to work, to write, to read till she understood everything that had seemed second nature to Burr in their partnership. She was nonstop, the mother cum wife cum fledgling lawyer. No one seemed keen to step in and help. She needed more time.

Burr would arrive home late and fall into bed with Eliza and Theodosia. Muttering about the sins of Thomas Jefferson until they fell into an uneasy sleep. Sometimes they would bring colleagues home to continue with their work, only to occupy half the space Eliza needed to maintain her practice. In assuming Theodosia’s public role they had squashed them all into the enclosed space of this house.

Somewhere in New York there was a house that had once belonged to the Hamiltons or the Burrs, no one could remember any more. Somewhere in New York there was an office with the names Burr and Hamilton etched on the door. There was no time to move between that place and this and so it was as good as gone.

It was hard not to let resentment build in her chest. For the illness Theodosia suffered and the time Jefferson stole from Angelica and Burr and the work that Burr had placed on her head. Eliza would have liked to be a better person, but she had been patient for too long. She could not stop the tide of resentment that began to rise against the shores of her mind. She did not expect to be written into history, and perhaps that was where she went wrong. If she had ambition she might have found it in her to tell these fools to step out of the way and let her pass.

“Smile more,” Burr urged. Eliza did not comply. Theodosia was getting worse and the girls knew.

On the rare occasion that Peggy made time for her, she would come in babbling about trade routes and seasonal crops. She ever seemed to smelled of something terrible that would linger in the halls for many days. Philippa and Theo were always happy to see her, which was a blessing, but Eliza was not sure it was enough.

“Suddenly they’re all up and gone,” Eliza said, only Maria seemed to hear her.

“You will find the strength to go on.”

New York was a cacophony of print. Most of it libelous trash, but the storm of high emotions that surrounded it made it almost impossible to pick out what was true from what was false. Jefferson stirred the pot by publishing damning pamphlets and paying newspapers to favour her opinion. It worked, public sentiment began to shift from Abigail’s favour.

Angelica, of course, responded to everything Jefferson published with gusto. Eliza watched her sister’s hand fly over ream after ream of paper, her other hand dipping effortlessly into political pies too rich to understand. “How do you write like you’re running out of time?”

Such comments were seen as praise to Angelica, who shrugged her shoulders like it was nothing, and not the fate of the nation she hoped one day to lead. “Jefferson is merciless. She must be stopped.”

A Juggernaut cannot be stopped. No one seemed to realise as much, at least not until the time for alternative action was long passed. Eliza stumbled into courtrooms feeling underprepared and indignant. Somewhere along the line she had forgotten that this job was about defending people from a fate they did not deserve. For now, all she saw was a puzzle she was not well placed to understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for sporadic updates this week - it's been a busy one


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Adams administration was less steady than that of Martha Washington.

The Adams administration was less steady than that of Martha Washington. From her privileged position so close to the ear of the Executive, Eliza knew this was less to do with the temperament of the woman in charge and more to so with the sum of various warring parts. With her London birth and her obvious favour for the government systems of England, distrust in Esther grew faster than Angelica could quell it. Meanhile Lucy Knox fell into Jefferson’s sphere of influence like an obliging moon.

“Jefferson has Lucy’s support in opposing the whiskey tax,” Angelica groaned, “How are we to contend with that?”

“You are a writer of the Federalist, as is Theodosia, who is always by your side.” Burr reminded her.

They were rewarded with a look of skepticism. The constitution was written a long time ago and had been much amended since Angelica and Theodosia sat down with Phillis Wheatley to defend it. Not that their status as authors of the essays counted for nothing, but it did not count for as much as they would like it to.

Eliza rather thought that Theodosia did not tie herself to people like that. She believed in ideas and would support the people who upheld them with gusto. But she would never let her private loyalties compromise her political clout.

The house descended into further turmoil as cabinet factions made their home within it at odd hours and with dubious purpose. Angelica had no qualms about bringing Esther and Abigail over to discuss the fight that was still being fought against the national bank. It seemed a foolish point to debate over, the bank was there, and was functioning as intended. What fault could Jefferson possibly find in it?

Desperate to stay impartial, Abigail ushered Jefferson and Lucy through the back door when she knew no one else was home. They talked of farmers and taxes and all the debt that had been lumped upon states that apparently did not deserve it. Burr watched all these debates play out without ever offering their own opinion. They were cautious, waiting to see how the game would be played.

“You both have houses of your own,” Eliza snapped, after one too many arguments had been had in her living room. Angelica and Abigail looked nonplussed, like they too were beginning to forget that they had other places they could be. Was there nowhere in New York but the hearth of Eliza Hamilton? She never asked to be sat between the heads of so many tables.

The trouble was, this table was not round. Abigail sat at the head and Angelica at the foot. Jefferson was worryingly close to Abigail’s right hand. No matter how hard she tried to separate the personal from politics, the personal mattered in all this. It was important that the Adams spent those years in France with Jefferson, that Thomas had known John.

“Abigail will have to pick a side,” Theodosia said. She spent most days propped up in bed by pillows, Theo heading in after lunch, like clockwork every day to read to her. Philippa stopping by in unpredictable scatterings to tell of scandal and society.

“Some girls have been dueling,” Philippa said, eyes wide wide with excitement. Eliza hated that look on her face when she spoke of death and glory. She had given birth to a little Icarus, determined to fly ever further towards the sun and she had no idea how to reign her in.

Theodosia was quieter with every passing day, and the doctor regularly had to be called to tend to her discomfort. “It will not be long now,” she told Eliza, and Eliza did not know how to tell Burr, sitting downstairs in the drawing room. Trying to blend into the background of political discourse.

There was too much tension in the house. A dying mother, a floundering law practice, a calculating politician and a storm of words. It was all Eliza could do to throw up her hands and prevail upon Peggy, “please, can my girls stay with you?”

Peggy did not flinch when Eliza spoke of Theo as her own, then again Peggy did not flinch at much. The house she shared with Maria was small and filthy, but close enough to the heart of the city that no one need feel trapped by it. It was all for the best. Theo fell too quickly into the trap of neglecting her other passions for the sake of her father’s debates, and Philippa was too prone to violence to thrive in the enclosed walls of her parents’ house.

They walked over early in the morning, when the city was at peace. To the girls, now fourteen years old, it seemed like an adventure. To Eliza, it felt like giving up. They piled into the little house and Peggy plied them with coffee. Over the coming months Maria would learn to braid Theo’s hair just how she liked it and Philippa would learn how to turn her disquiet heart into a tool for good commerce.

Watching part of her family find their way in the world without her, Eliza walked home via the courthouse, via the office. It would prove a long day. She did not arrive home until the sun was long sunk below the horizon and the clouds covering the stars made the night muggy and oppressive. It was some relief to find the house quiet when she got in, and the candles out on the lower level. She climbed the stairs to find Burr asleep in Theodosia’s frail arms, and did not know how to join the picture.

“Stay,” Theodosia whispered.

The next night, Eliza slept in her office instead. When she awoke, the street below was filled with the all too familiar babble of news vendors with something interesting to say. She stumbled downstairs, groggy and missing the coffee from Peggy’s table. She bought a copy of the _New York Post_ (because she knew it belonged to Angelica) and a copy of the _Gazette_ (because she knew it belonged to Jefferson).

The _New York Post_ lead with _Adam’s Government Treachery_ and the _Gazette_ with _President Approves Plans for New Government in Virginia_. Eliza had to read both articles several times before she understood, her hands shaking as she parsed sentences that she did not want to read. The city was aflame with talk and outrage, the capitol surrounded. Eliza ran home, back to Burr and Theodosia, back to something safe and stable and permanent.

Through the front door, up the stairs, into the bedroom. Theodosia looked so weak, Burr looked so sad, she hated to do this to them. “President Adams has struck a deal with Thomas Jefferson whereby the nation’s banks will stay in New York. But the seat of government will be moved to a new city, to be built along the Potomac River in Virginia.”

There was silence, and Eliza didn’t know if it was in shock or indifference. Burr looked to Theodosia as if to say ‘what does it matter to us? You will not live to see another city.’

Abigail Adams was done, destroyed by Angelica’s pen in her ensuing tirade as much as her favouritism for old friends. No one minded that a President picked sides, but they hated watching her being so obvious about it. Money for construction started to be spun from the treasury coffers, and within six months the political climate seemed to have up and left New York. It left the city empty and desperately wanting for high minded talk and respectable society. The citizens sat in haughty silence, waiting for the day that New York meant nothing more than a bank. 


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a quiet morning in May, a little chilly for the time of year but sunny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character death in this chapter - I think we all know which character

It was a quiet morning in May, a little chilly for the time of year but sunny. The girls were still with Peggy, Burr was at the capitol. For once, the politicians had decided to keep to their own dominions, rather than invade Eliza's. In many ways, it reminded her of the early days. When she had sat at home, wondering what to make of the lack of men and the Vanishment of her husband. Or waiting for Theodosia to stop by and regale her with tales of the wider city and the wider world.

She was still waiting for Theodosia, but this was a different kind of waiting. The words fell slower from her friend’s lips each passing day, every breath seemed to take a little more out of her. The doctor could do little more than prescribe opiates to dull the pain in her stomach. 

Waiting for someone to die was a terrible position to be put in. No matter how many times Eliza tried to justify the urgency nipping at the back of her throat. She told herself Theodosia would be more comfortable once she passed, that her suffering would come to an end. All the same, Eliza knew that once her friend was gone, the stresses of caring for a dying woman would be lifted from her shoulders. It seemed a terrible way to look at it, but the thought refused to be entirely brushed aside. 

Caring for a dying person was hard work. All Theodosia had to do was lie there, while Eliza fussed around, made arrangements, tried to prepare herself for the inevitable. The dying is easy, living is harder.

Eliza looked down at Theodosia’s hand wrapped around hers, the skin faded from the luscious gold it had been when they met to a pasty grey. She looked so small, surrounded as she was by a bed big enough for three. All the blankets that could be gathered, from every corner of the house, had been folded around her into a great nest of fabric. She was a little egg that would never hatch.

“I met Burr at the Hermitage. There were men around, back then. Do you remember Eliza? All those men with their wars and their ideas of grandeur. How did we manage with them around?”

Things hadn’t seemed so bad at first light. Theodosia had been as well as her deteriorating state could ever let her be, so when Burr had left to go about their business Eliza thought nothing of it. It no longer seemed like such a good idea for the husband to have left. She would have liked to send word to the capitol to bring them home, to make sure they were here when Theodosia needed them. To say nothing of the girls…poor Theo.

They would never get there in time. Even if they had been able to, Eliza would not have dared risk the time it would take to send a messenger. The thought of Theodosia slipping from one world into the next without a hand to hold sent shivers down her spine. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than Eliza Hamilton realised that she did not wish to die alone.

“I knew your Alexander for a time, he was a bright boy. Stars above, he would have done incredible things with this country had he lived. If he only had time…”

Eliza didn’t say a thing, she had spent fifteen years not mourning Alexander and she was not about to start. Theodosia’s whole body shook when she breathed and the past ghosted over her eyes. It was impossible to say if she was really there in the room. She had lived in a reactionary space, fundamentally at odds with everything that had come before her. She was supposed to break beyond those floodgates and fly, but her wings would never spread that wide. 

Carefully pulling back the covers, so as not to disturb the frail woman within, Eliza climbed into bed and wrapped her arms around Theodosia. Shedrew her in close, so that their breaths mingled and the light still burning in those tired eyes was close enough to touch. Alexander had been fireworks, he had taken one look in her direction and her heart had gone boom. This is more subtle and less easily defined. But faced with the prospect of spending the rest of her life in a world that did not contain her Theodosia, Eliza weapt just the same.

“I love you very much,” she whispered. Theodosia let herself be kissed, but she did not kiss back. She no longer had the energy for that.

“Tell my Theo that I love her. Tell my Philippa that I love her. Tell Burr…tell Aaron…” in the time it takes to fall asleep, Theodosia’s voice faded out, she stopped gasping for breath. All the world became still and silent, punctuated only by Eliza’s sobs. The spirit of the house felt depleted and wrong, like the walls knew that something essential to their being had been snatched from this realm.

It all seemed rather unreal until the funeral, just three days later. Philippa read the poem Theo composed for the day, because her sister was crying too hard to speak. Burr’s face was blank, like the last three days of continued sobbing and remembrance had robbed them of their ability to feel. Eliza would have welcomed that, to disengage from her emotions for a while and just be. A tiny island in an ocean of grief.

The body was lowered into the ground with crushing finality. A woman rode into New York claiming the army was gone, Theodosia came round just to complain about the men who were nowhere to be found, Theodosia arrived on her doorstep with little Theo looking confused and proud, Theodosia lit up like the stars when Burr came home, Theodosia picked up a pen and ran for office and made choices that mattered for all their sakes, Theodosia refused to stop having an opinion even after disease confined her to her bed, Theodosia remembered a world very different from this one but she made this one work.

Burr was slow to draw in close, Eliza couldn’t pretend she didn’t sympathise. This perhaps could be their tit for tat. Burr saw Alexander more recently than she, she saw Theodosia for the final time. In another life they might have been able to sit by their own spouses when the moment finally came, but in this life they had been doomed to each carry the burden for the other.

“She loved you, Aaron.” Eliza tried the Christian name with trepidation, it seemed an odd fit.

With a shuddering sigh, Burr pulled her into an embrace. They stood in the kitchen, not saying a word, just feeling the life flowing through the other. The fact they had been left did not mean they had been left with nothing.

Burr pulled back far enough to plant a kiss on Eliza’s lips, “she loved you too.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftershocks of Theodosia’s passing were to be felt throughout the rest of their lives, though in that first year it was hardest.

The aftershocks of Theodosia’s passing were to be felt throughout the rest of their lives, though in that first year it was hardest. They still had jobs to do, people to be before the public who could not up and vanish because their private selves were reeling from a loss. Theo and Philippa seemed to not be entirely present in either Eliza or Peggy’s home, though they both said they had moved back in with their mother.

“The mother we still have.” Philippa spat her words like bullets. She had no one specific to be angry at, and so she was angry at them all, unsettled and prone to fighting girls her age if her rage would permit.

“Why can you not learn to bite your tongue?” Theo wailed, as her and Eliza picked bark out of a deep gash Philippa had earned brawling in the forest.

Philippa didn’t want to talk to any of them about it, she was content to let the hurricane rage. Sometimes Eliza wondered if Philippa might not have been a boy had the Vanishment not happened. She had the temperament that both Lucy and Angelica attributed to men, which seemed to make mountains of the slightest grievances.

In the smallest of daily activities, Eliza would see Theodosia. The hardest thing had come first, which was the stripping of the bed and the destruction of the sheets on which her friend, her love, had died. Sometimes she would be sipping tea in the kitchen and would think of a humorous thing to say but when she looked up to say it she had no company. When she called out for an opinion on politics or law or whatever it was the newspaper was reporting on, there would be no answer. Unless it was in Theo’s voice.

Theo didn’t look quite like her mother in the way she did her father. In many ways, she appeared to be identical to Burr save the lack of worry lines and her lighter complexion. But in her personality she matched Theodosia more perfectly. Her early passion for politics faded to poetry as she moved through her teen years. She had seen the strife it caused her parents and could hardly be blamed for the distance she desired from the fray.

“My mother was a poet,” Theo said, firmly, when Eliza reminded her that she need not give up on everything her mother treasured.

It took three weeks of digging to find the evidence, but Theo was proven right. At the back of a bookshelf in the spare room still waiting patiently for Marthe, Eliza found a book of verse in Theodosia’s neat hand. She took it to bed that night and read out passages to Burr, their head tucked into her shoulder and silent tears streaming down their face.

“Did you know about this?” Eliza asked. Burr nodded. Eliza felt like a fool who had been shut out of something that could so easily have been privy to.

There were many nights of poems to be read, but before she could turn the final page Burr stopped her, “not the last one, please. Leave one unread.”

So they did just that. The final poem stayed secret, unlooked at and unspoken. One final thing in the world that Theodosia still had left to say. They both suspected that Theo had read it and that Philippa would not care for a written substitute for what has been lost. It was their secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is gonna be the shortest chapter in the whole fic?
> 
> Anyway - I am publishing this on the 8th of November and I am not an American. If you are an American over 18 then please remember to vote! But please don't vote for Trump!!!! Thanks!


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spare bedrooms do not stay empty forever.

Spare bedrooms do not stay empty forever. They either play host to a changing cast of guests, find themselves a permanent tenant or become an unwitting warehouse. With Theodosia’s book of poetry removed, it seemed the spare room in Eliza’s house was ready to receive its occupant.

_I have booked Marthe passage on a ship out of Calais next month, it will have to take a long route up through northern waters to avoid the French coast guard. I thank you, my friend. I cannot thank you enough._

Eliza poured over Adrienne’s letter for a week before she passed it to the rest of her family. Burr was too exhausted by grief and work to care if they had another mouth to feed. Philippa was still skeptical of any strangers in their home, and Theo was ready to be distracted by something good happening in her life.

So it was Theo that accompanied Eliza down to the ports every morning in October, as a welcome committee. Peggy had promised that she would send word should a ship arrive from France, but it wasn’t enough. They had managed to stumble upon Thomas Jefferson by accident, they needed to receive their guest with intent.

“What is she like?” Maria asked. Theo leaned in, eager and excited.

“She is a child hounded by the revolution, and she is French aristocracy. I don’t know much else. But she is the daughter of a friend of Alexanders and I intend to do right by her,” was all that Eliza could tell.

When the ship did arrive it was nothing like Jefferson’s triumphant return to her mother country. It was a battered little thing that looked like it should have fallen apart upon docking, and the sailors who handled the ropes that bound it to the pier looked skinny and underfed. It was bare of French flags, of any marker of nationality or pride. A ship to escape in when nothing else was coming to your aid.

A flurry of figures emerged from below deck, each clasping packs that seemed far too small to house all of ones earthly possessions. Their silhouettes were drowned in cloaks that were no doubt insufficient to mask the cold of the high seas. They looked identical at a distance, and Eliza was struck by the realisation that she did not know the face that she was looking for. She couldn’t say if she had been expected Marthe to arrive on a ship of her own, or in such finery that her wealth would be obvious amongst the crowds. So she scanned the figures pouring down the gangplank, trying to remember the face of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, from the few times they had met.

“Which one is she?” Theo asked. Eliza’s mouth hung open, unable to say a word.

As with Thomas Jefferson, Maria had an eye for these things that Eliza lacked. She marked out one of the cloaked masses almost instantly, a stout girl with dark skin and locks so long they hung almost to her ankles. “That’s her.”

How she knew, Eliza couldn’t say, but she trusted Maria Reynolds. She took a cautious step forward, held out a hand, “excuse me, are you Marthe Washington de La Fayette?”

“Eliza Hamilton!” Marthe took the offered hand with more confidence than her young years might merit, and leaned in to plant a kiss on each of Eliza’s cheeks. She had a smile like golden glory and a thick French accent, and in these the last vestiges of her father were recognisable. “I cannot thank you enough for your hospitality.”

When Theo held out a hand to be shaken and was met with a kiss, she blushed. Peggy shot Eliza a knowing look and Eliza thought back on all the rumours she had heard about French girls. All the way home, the two of them spoke in rapid fire French. Theo was delighted to have someone who could carry the kind of conversation she had been craving in her favourite second language. The spare room seemed to spring to life just by having this girl cross its threshold.

“Make yourself at home,” Eliza insisted, and Marthe took the invitation to heart. She treated housework as a grim but necessary labour, scrubbing floors and cooking meals with a fervour that Eliza had forgotten she used to possess. Theo watched her from a distance, assisting where she could but unfamiliar with the tasks that were being carried out before her eyes.

How odd. In another life the best a girl of Theo’s station could ascribe to was a clean house and well balanced finances. Now it seemed a miracle that Marthe found time for such things alongside everything else.

“What a goody two shoes,” Philippa snorted, coming home to find dinner on the table and floors that had been properly cleaned for the first time in months. She had been out dealing with the merchants that Peggy was too busy to manage. It did not matter that she was young, she had the skill of making people listen to her, even when they thought they ought not to be.

Marthe didn’t take the scorn personally. “Your parents are busy, and I am a guest. It’s the least I can do.”

Lacking in French and with places to be that were not the schoolhouse or her home, Philippa stood aside and let Theo fall under Marthe’s wing. Eliza could see what was happening, but she had no idea how to stop it. When she was a child people used to talk of the curse of three, how siblings left in triplets would always split off into a pair and a single. But such a split had never happened amongst the Schuyler sisters.

So Philippa threw herself into assisting Peggy and stole moments with her sister when Marthe’s back was turned. She brooded and she got into fights she didn’t need to get into, but that was nothing unusual. As long as the fights stayed out of Eliza’s sight and out of her home there wasn’t much she could do about it.

Jefferson stopped by sometimes to offer Marthe books and advice. She seemed genuinely concerned for the girl’s wellbeing and spoke fondly of her parents. Eliza remembered the bridge it felt like they had built when Adrienne has first suggested sending her daughter across the sea. It spoke volumes that the mother did not trust Jefferson to care for the girl, but Eliza appreciated the efforts of the politician nonetheless.

“She’s a bright young thing,” Jefferson beamed. Eliza didn’t have the heart to tell her that every book given would fall into Theo’s hands.

“Please talk to me,” Eliza begged. Sat at the foot of Philippa’s bed and wondering how on Earth she could fix her daughters uneasy heart and suspecting she could not. Alexander had been just like her, head full of fantasies of dying like a martyr. Only Philippa had no cause to die for, just a pig headed insistence on the truth and an over inflated sense of honour.

She had already decided that if Theo liked Marthe then she must not, on principle, or she would never be able to view their friendship objectively. “I’m fine, Ma. I promise I won’t start anything.”

That promise would have to be enough. Philippa was a girl of honour, and where she made promises she kept them.

“Have I done something to upset her?” Marthe asked, setting a plate of toast before Eliza as she read through the morning papers. It was strange, how having a French ward made one more conscious of French news. Eliza had never been so well informed about the state of their revolution.

Eliza set the paper down. “No, you haven’t done a thing. You have to understand, Philippa is not angry with you so much as she is angry with everything.”

Marthe nodded and pulled the discarded paper towards her. Eliza would come home that evening to find her and Philippa wrestling in the garden, their clothes caked in mud and grim determination clouding their faces. They sprang apart as soon as she appeared, “It’s just for fun!” Marthe assured her.

Of course it was impossible to be convinced that it was entirely for fun. But when they returned to the house an hour later, exhausted and filthy, Philippa consented to sharing a bath with Marthe. She was able to sit with her and Theo as they discussed the merits of various ancient languages in French that must have been too fast for her to understand.

“How is our guest?” Burr would ask in the brief moments of respite congress allowed them.

Eliza slung an arm around their neck, pulled them in close. Convinced herself that there was not enough passion in her heart when she kissed them for it to mean anything. “She is charming, and helpful, and she does not mind Philippa’s temper.”

Burr laughed at that, that lovely deep chuckle that was so rare no women outside this house had heard it. They held Eliza’s hand, all the way to bed, and did not let go all night long. They both felt guilty for it, but you cannot let guilt hold a knife over your head forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a note entirely unrelated to this fic - I am sincerely sorry to every American currently looking on their future with uncertainty and worry. You guys most likely have a rough ride ahead of you, but you'll get through it.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter arrived and with it the promise of new elections and a great many parties.

Winter arrived and with it the promise of new elections and a great many parties. The girls were still content in their mourning blacks. Eliza was relieved when they shook their heads at the prospect of switching to more festive colours for the season. They would be ready, soon, but it seemed only right that they pass one festive season a little less festively in honour of Theodosia.

“You must come to Jefferson’s ball!” Angelica cried, marching up the garden path on her campaign trail. She was running for President this time round. Even with her fondness for the now disgraced Abigail Adams common knowledge, there seemed little doubt she would win.

The Eliza Hamilton of the previous year would have been suspicious of such a request. She had been that there was nothing but hate between Angelica and Jefferson. But the loss of a love of her own had sharpened her senses when it came to sniffing out affection in others. Though there would always be notes of political outrage in the arguments her sister waged against Jefferson, there was a way they had of zeroing in on each other that spoke of a begrudging respect. She had contemplated the possibility at the very beginning, which did not mean that she was not surprised to see it come to fruition.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Angelica sniffed, dressed in fine pink silks on her way to Abigail’s farewell ball. She looked ready to have some fine young woman sweep her off her feet, but they both knew Angelica would rather find herself someone who could match her mind than conquer her body.

Eliza would never ask if Angelica had loved Alexander the way she did. To know would not change the past, and it might destroy their future friendship. Best not.

Burr did their best to smile for the girls, even when the girls were not best placed to smile. They took them out shopping for presents and sweets. The smell of gingerbread was an ever present fixture of their home thanks to them sharing their recipe with Marthe. There were still nights when they needed to disappear and sit in quiet contemplation of all that they had lost, but when they were there they were there with all their mind and spirit.

“Thank you,” Eliza ran a hand across their shaved head. Burr cast her a glance that said there was nothing to be thanked for.

With the benefit of age and experience, Eliza recognised Abigail’s warmth and understanding and desperate attempts to remain in everyone’s good graces as a kind of grief. It is very simple, if you cannot be happy you can only try to ensure everyone else is. It was with great sorrow that the remanence of this great woman’s government looked on. They watched her mourn her husband, the world she had been born into and her career all at once. None of them had seen her coming, but they would all watch her leave.

The aspiring women of the city held balls and dinners to encourage people to vote for them. Theo found she rather likes dancing and Marthe was only too happy to teach her, spinning her round the spare room with great gusto and telling her how graceful she looked. Philippa was a good dancer but found herself happier standing on the side-lines. She would scowl at anyone who danced with her sister to be sure they knew who they would have to deal with if they broke her heart.

“There’s no need to scare the poor girl!” Eliza chastised Philippa after her daughter had given a poor young thing from Massachusetts the most terrible fright when she had dared to ask Theo for a dance.

Philippa stuck her nose in the air with the same self-assured arrogance that both she and her father had carried all their lives. “I know my sister like I know my own mind, you will never find anyone as trusting or as kind and she needs someone to keep an eye on her.”

“Keep an eye on your sister,” Burr pleaded with Theo every time Philippa wandered off by herself. There was no telling what trouble she might get herself into.

Even in their widow’s blacks, there was a certain joy to be found in the merriment of the season. Eliza had expected to feel more profoundly bereft than ever before. Lacking a love at Christmas time was a terrible position to find oneself in, yet there seemed enough love in the air of one manner or another to buoy her along. There was always another table to eat at, another carol to sing. They were all too busy to sit around and wallow in sadness, though the shock of the empty space at the table on Christmas day was enough to send both Eliza and Burr flying into the garden. Reaching for each other’s hands as the first renegade tears escaped their eyes.

Eliza and Burr danced comfortably together, the music swayed as if for them. Her hand was at their waist, leading. They smiled back at her with calculated serenity, like they were trying very hard not to think about all the times they had danced like this with their wife. 

Something not entirely unlike guilt twisted in Eliza's chest. She should be more sombre, less forgiving. When Alexander had asked for her hand in marriage neither of them had envisioned this. But it was an ugly thought and an ugly feeling, best left discarded and rotting along the way. If only. 

Angelica left Jefferson helpless before her charms. Theo spotted it first, nudging Philippa in the side and then standing back to watch as her sister found mistletoe to hold over the unwitting couple under.

“Are you surprised?” Burr asked, because evidently they were.

Eliza shook her head, “I can’t believe I didn’t see Philippa’s role in it a little further off though.”

So very distracted by everything else, it was not until the night before the election that it occurred to Eliza that Burr had not been campaigning. She found them reading by the fire, and launched into a speech about all the possibilities of a world in which they were not bound to political service.

Burr silenced her with a hand, “I’m not running Eliza. Did I not tell you?”

“You should have told me,” Eliza willed her voice to be hard but in truth she was not angry. The past four years had been too much, she had no desire to watch Burr run away to the newly built Washington city and leave her all alone with her work.

Their work.

After the New Year, Burr took a stack of books from the drawing room and with Eliza’s help, walked it down town to their shared office. Together they brushed off the dust and cobwebs, found their place in amongst the muck of legal jargon and paper.

This time it was an equal partnership, Burr stepped into court and introduced Eliza as “Hamilton, my co-counsel.” They worked on their own cases and each other’s, filling in each other’s knowledge with such ease that it seemed they had been born to do so. They had shared joy, hardship, a home, they had molded perfectly together, into a machine of quiet efficiency.

Downstairs, the vendor sold papers that declared Angelica Schuyler the third president of the United States.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeffergelica is my weakness don't @ me


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Burr got Alexander. Eliza got Theodosia. Theo got Philippa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another death this chapter.

Burr got Alexander. Eliza got Theodosia. Theo got Philippa.

Theo got Philippa far too soon.

The sun was half way up the sky by the time she came barreling through the door of Eliza and Burr’s office. She was screeching, waving a piece of paper in their faces. Demanding answers and demanding justics. 

What a strange thing for a young woman of reasonable parentage to have done. To reach back through the years and pull pistols out of the ashes of the world that was doomed the day the men went away, it seemed unthinkable.

With trembling hands, Eliza took the letter and read it out, unfeeling to the room at large. Part of being a decent lawyer was surpressing your disgust and outrage and dealing with the evidence in front of you. “I have gone to duel a girl who insulted father’s honour. I may not be back.”

Burr’s fingers tightened over the edge of their desk, “what could have possessed her to take up arms in my name?”

“Not you,” Theo sobbed, “Alexander Hamilton.”

Sure enough, in the days that followed a pamphlet would be produced that begged the question: “how does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean, impoverished by Providence, in squalor…?” The list went on and on. Nothing good to say. Who on Earth had brought up the past and then dared to care?

Georgina Eaker was barely a year older than Philippa. She had taken the time to rifle through what records remained from the war, and decided that Alexander Hamilton had been a weakness at Washington's right hand. Against all logic, she had taken the time and energy to publish a pamphlet decrying his name. Of course Philippa had leapt at the chance to show her loyalty to her family. She was not the first girl to die in a duel and she would not be the last, but she was by far the most eager for a fight. 

Eliza never saw Georgina's face. She did not want to know, to look upon someone who would do a thing like this seemed a curse in and of itself. Her eyes stayed on the waxy skin of Philippa’s corpse, “she must have been so scared.”

This was not the sharp, immediate grief of Theodosia’s passing. The many levels of abstraction that it took to bring them all to where they were standing, in a home two women short, seemed to destroy any chance at a normal period of mourning. Eliza had not seen Philippa in the twelve hours before she died, she had not found the letter. She was being presented with a terrible truth and asked to accept it, and she would fight tooth and nail to see it proven false.

Straight backed, blank eyed, Eliza went walking through the garden and did not think about Marthe and Philippa wrestling in the mud. She walked the length of the city searching for a sign that she would be allowed to opt out of this version of reality. Alexander went off to war and as far as she was concerned he was still out there somewhere, still fighting. Philippa fought her whole life through. Who was to say that she was not also out there, waging war on a world that she was determined to prove did not understand her?

“She would always change the line,” Eliza’s hands paused over the piano. She had thought a little music might help.

Theo lost a sister, immediately and without warning. Eliza did not know how to comfort her, she would not even be able to imagine the pain until the wave had broken over her own grief. The house was filled with sobbing and the scratch of Theo’s quill on whatever paper she could find. Writing, writing, trying to dislodge the words that would perfectly encapsulate how she felt. As if in doing so she could put her sorrow outside of herself. Marthe tried to talk to her but could not find the words in English or French. Her and Eliza could only take turns to hold Theo while she cried, trying to absorb her grief.

Together, Eliza and Theo knelt before the altar of any church that will take them. Theo prayed for peace, Eliza prayed that this was not happening to her. Burr and Marthe stood back and waited till they were done to complete their own prayers.

For Burr it was a difficult thing to balance. They had loved Philippa as their own but had been missing for those first few years of her life. Unlike Theo, they had never stared into her eyes and seen their own reflected back at them. They were in a permanent limbo, waiting for Theo’s next breakdown from which they would try to save her, waiting for permission to grieve.

Eliza woke in the night to find Burr sobbing next to her, and she could not say if it was that that woke her or the unbearable quiet of the dark. She wrapped an arm around their waist, pulled them closer, kissed the top of their head. If this was the only time they felt able to cry then she would be there to pick them up.

People did not know how to express their sadness at the passing of one so young. Angelica sent a letter filled with praise for the few years Philippa had lived and a bottle of wine from Jefferson’s personal collection. It felt like a strangely distant thing to send one’s grieving sister in honour of a niece who you had loved and who had loved you. Eliza reminded herself that her older sister had responsibilities she could not imagine, and tried to be grateful for what she had the time to give.

Catharine sent a better message of condolence. Though Eliza was sure her mother was thinking more of Phillip Schuyler when she wrote than Philippa Hamilton. She spoke of shock and healing, and the faith she held that her loved ones had been ushered on to a greater place. It was ok, Philippa was named for her father. With a jolt, Eliza remembered that her mother was getting to be quite old indeed, and it would not be long before she too was gone.

More practical than verbose, Peggy and Maria found all the missing pieces and put them back into place. Peggy and Marthe would do the shopping and would stop by to take Eliza and Burr out for a beer. Maria braided Theo’s hair and didn’t try to stop her when she cried. All the while Eliza walked, hollow, through the aisles people created for her. Desperately hoping the penny would never drop, or that time would rewind and let her have all the good years again.

She could be seen walking in the garden, at Burr’s side, most afternoons. Eliza would stare into the flower beds, overgrown for lack of a gardener or personal care, and mumble to herself “can you imagine.”

Once upon a time, Eliza and Theodosia had watched Philippa and Theo play together in this garden. They had been trying to piece together what was left of their worlds. Before Burr, before politics and law became more important than the life they were supposed to live together. The sound of children’s laughter had been a rare commodity back then, and it was even rarer now. Look at where they were, look at where they started. They didn’t deserve this.

The wave broke all at once, the tumble of emotions and memories mingling to discolour one another. Joy turned bitter and nostalgia cold. The sound of Philippa’s voice echoed through the empty cavity of Eliza's mind. The way she would tip her nose in the air, the way she would rise to any challenge and create one where it was not presented. Her stubborn pride too much like Alexanders for her own good, her faith in herself, her faith in her sister. The way she had hated and raged but never at Eliza. They played piano, she would always change the line. Trying to teach her French but she would never quite grasp it. All of that, wiped out in a single bullet, can you imagine?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-

Eliza was glad Burr was there to catch her when she fell. The ground beneath her feet fell away and from that deep dark pit a sound emerged from her throat so terrible she had not been aware she could make it. Together they stood there, mingling tears and leaning upon each other. Finding purchase on each other’s shoulders and breathing, breathing, breathing. You must keep breathing.

The day was torn in two. And it was quiet uptown where they lived, the sound carried over streets and houses like a messenger of death. Something had been taken, from all of them, and from that moment on the world would be divided into the time before it was gone and everything else. Young women were so few and far between. Still shaking, Eliza found her feet and her and Burr walked back to the house.

And then there were four.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time there were no Christmas parties to distract them.

This time there were no Christmas parties to distract them. There was little else for the family to do than to throw themselves into their work like the rustling of paper might be enough to drown out the ghosts. Theo and Marthe were seventeen, too old to still be leaning with tutors and playing in an empty house by themselves. So they joined Eliza and Burr when they could stomach it, and Theo wrote for any newspaper that would have her when they couldn’t.

The four of them had made for an unusual family portrait, but like this people mistook them for something more normal. Burr would never look like a woman and they did not try to, but that only went to impress further upon people the idea that they and Eliza had sired Theo. They looked like they might have been any ordinary family from the Vanishment would have done.

The difficulty was that once the initial period of mourning was over, Burr expected the world to continue as before. They ploughed through case after case and bemoaned the fact that were now so far removed from the centre of the nation’s political commerce. Theo seemed content to let her father handle themselves in the privacy of their own mind, but Eliza sought companionship that was more than skin deep.

She pressed. She drew Burr close to her and asked if they remembered the sound of Philippa’s voice when she was angry, the smell of Theodosia’s perfume. She would sit back and watch their eyes glaze over like they did not want to think about it, or that they simply did not want to know.

“Some people have trouble talking about death.” Maria said, when Eliza tried to articulate the distance Burr put between themselves and their emotions.

Maria was wise, but that wasn’t enough. Every time Eliza pressed upon Burr the urgency of their emotions, she felt them step a little further away. They would sit, in bed. Each reading their own book and ignoring the other, and became two people joined by work and habit.

Catharine Schuyler died, it was only a matter of time. Eliza was ready for this death. She didn’t need to wait years for it to play out or watch it whither in front of her eyes or have it happen entirely too soon. Her mother lived a good and long life, and though she cried it was not with the force of the Earth falling out beneath her.

Regardless of their emotions, Burr had been her constant companion in grief. She could sense them once again being unsure how far they were allowed to engage when they accompanied her to Albany for the funeral. Angelica made the trip from Washington City, dragging Jefferson behind her, who looked awkward and out of place.

“Thomas was good enough to come,” Angelica smiled through her tears. Eliza realised it was the first time she had heard her sister call Jefferson but her first name.

The talk from the capitol was that Jefferson and Angelica still disagreed at almost every turn politically. Barred from the cabinet and serving in the senate, Jefferson found ways to slip around the flimsy laws that held the government in check. It had the effect of leaving Angelica looking like a lovesick fool who let her personal favourites get in the way of her job.

Still, Jefferson was there, holding Angelica's hand. Looking like she didn’t know where she was supposed to stand.

Burr kept an arm around Eliza’s shoulder the entire journey back to New York. They were careful only to ask about Catharine Schuyler, never to phrase a question so that it might lead to other matters. Eliza felt comforted and constricted. They walked through the door into a house that should have held dynasties and instead played host to four souls still working out how to move as one.

“Thank you,” the words felt stiff and formal on Eliza’s tongue. Burr appeared to see her for all of a moment before their gaze went glassy and they jerked out a half bow and the stairs to bed.

All this time, and all they had was each other. Eliza secluded herself in the kitchen till the sun rose with Alexander’s letters in her right hand and Theodosia’s poetry in her left. She cried and she cried and she cried, and come morning Burr came swooping in to tidy things away and lead her to bed. Still silent, and not entirely there, but trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to stop killing people smh


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone was a speculator or a merchant and all they ever seemed good for was getting themselves into trouble.

Everyone was a speculator or a merchant and all they ever seemed good for was getting themselves into trouble. A young woman with flyaway brown hair and an upturned nose stood in the middle of their office, explaining that she had no idea of the consequences of her actions.

“Please Mrs Hamilton, Mr…Mrs Burr, it’s just business.”

Burr watched her talk with what Eliza knew to be quiet condescension. They had a way with their eyes, that soft smile that was difficult to spot unless you really knew what you were looking for. The line between indulgence and ridicule was thin in them, and it was a rare client that could spot it.

This woman was not a rare client. She was as ordinary as they came, a hapless fool who had not thought to look before she leapt into the wide ocean of land speculation. He mother was no one, she had no money.

“We’ll take the case,” Eliza said, just to see the expression of panic that crossed Burr’s face. They always were too easily ruffled for true stoicism.

When the client was gone Burr turned to face Eliza, appalled, on the edge of rage. They didn’t need to say anything.

Eliza shrugged, “it will be a challenge.”

And so it was, to her greatest irritation. More so for her than Burr. Between the regular tick of property suits and the rest of the thoroughfare, she struggled through notes on cases that set any kind of precedent that might assist them. How could someone flout the laws of taxation and transit with such flare and find a way to walk away? In a flash, Eliza remembered Alexander, hunched over his books in what time he could spare away from the battlefield, and she found it in her to read faster.

It was a rare night that the four of them all made it home in time for supper, and poor Marthe always seemed to be saddled with more of the labour than anyone else. “We should get a chef!” Theo suggested. Eliza pursed her lips, she did not think they could afford it.

The next night, both girls were gone. Theo left a hastily written note about Marthe and sunsets in her place on the table. Burr frowned, “You don’t think…”

Until that moment Eliza had not even considered, but she saw the implication hiding between the confused folds of Burr’s face. “She is a grown woman, my dear. Courtship is a little difference from back in our day.”

“Back in my day I fell in love with a married woman ten years my senior on the battlefield,” Burr reminded her. Eliza conceded that perhaps irregular engagements were something of a family tradition.

On other nights, Theo would stop by the library on her way home and find more material for Eliza to read. Upon receipt of the hesitant thanks that always greeted such gifts, she hold her head high, and tell Eliza to “read like you’re running out of time.”

It would have been funny if it were not painfully close to home. Often Burr would appear at her shoulder with advice or tea, sometimes a gentle plea to come to bed, take a nice deep breath.

“I thought this was supposed to be a challenge for me.”

Eliza scowled at them, but she would always close her books when asked. This was an easier way of existing. The pressure of raw emotion had faded to an occasionally painful background murmur rather than the consummate purpose of their waking days. Burr would still shut themselves in the drawing room with a stack of papers and the Federalist from time to time. Eliza let her fingers drift over piano melodies that brought tears to her eyes.

Theo bore it best, in great bouts of weeping that would cleanse her body of all its aching sorrow for a time. When these emotional hurricanes overtook her, she let Eliza and Burr flood her with sympathy and affection. It was in those moments that they felt closest to each other, the world could come tumbling down and they would be strong enough to hold each other up.

A letter came, informing them that Angelica was pregnant, and not one of them was surprised. “I’ll have a cousin!” Theo crowed, and immediately ran off to tell Marthe.

Theo would have a cousin and Eliza would have a niece. She looked to Burr, expecting some secret emotion to be hiding in plain sight but saw nothing. They looked passive and removed from the moment.

Pressing them for a response revealed nothing. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Something within Eliza ticked over from a sincere wish for Burr to be more present in their emotions, to genuine rage that they could never be more supportive than they had to be. She stormed out into the garden, re-reading Angelica’s letter again and again. Forcing herself to smile despite herself and despite Burr. She would be happy, goddamn it, this would be enough.

A child! A new life! Such a precious thing. Eliza could not even find it within herself to worry that her sister would be a first time mother in her forties, or that it might impact her position as President. This was more important than all that.

Still silently fuming at them, Eliza walked into court with Burr at her shoulder. She stumbled through her opening statement as best she could, her heart in her mouth as the first witness took the stand. She opened her mouth to speak but Burr cut in ahead of her, with questions so perfectly designed one would think it had been them that had stressed and sweated into a case they had foolishly claimed they could win.

Burr was no fool. They won. “I’m not saying it wasn’t a challenge,” their voice was flat and lively all at once. Eliza’s rage melted, this was so much easier. She would never stay angry at Burr for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's been leaving comments there's been a mini rush over the past couple of days and I love you all <3


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seemed unlikely that Angelica and Thomas would formalise their coupling in marriage.

It seemed unlikely that Angelica and Thomas would formalise their coupling in marriage. This was something of a shame - a wedding was always a thing of joy. Eliza remembered her own wedding day with such fondness that it always seemed her heart would burst at the very thought. She had been wearing white, and Alexander had been wearing green – purity and new life. He had taken her hand and told her she would never again feel so helpless.

He was right, he never got the chance to break her down like that. Instead he left and let her find her own two feet. Perhaps not the sturdiest rock she could have built her life on and not the one she would have chosen, but she was making it work. She still had his letters, to remind herself that there had been a time when there was no need to share.

She wasn’t quite ready to share herself with Burr, not without the warm buffer of Theodosia between them. But she could feel herself falling into habits that would send her down that path. She kissed them like clockwork, in the morning, in the evening, when she wanted to be distracted from her work. Often it was cursory, sometimes she let herself fall into it, fall into them till the world around faded out of the periphery of her senses.

“Eliza,” Burr pulls away, cautious. They were always willing to share, but recovering from Theodosia is hard on them both.

Eliza wanted to stay routed in the past, but her body protested. She wasn’t so young anymore, she had crow’s feet growing from the corners of her eyes and the first treacherous grey hairs have started to appear. Her bones were tired of waiting, wearing from wanting. Guilt reared it's head, that ancient beast too often stirred awake - she didn't have the energy to beat it down.

It wasn’t such a hard decision for everyone. Margaret Shippen never seemed much affected by the loss of Benedict Arnold, and she was beautiful enough to attract many a woman into her orbit. Marriage was not something she seemed keen on engaging in. “I handle enough divorces not to want to risk it.” She grinned wicked at Burr and Eliza as she stepped into their office to deliver papers on behalf of a client of hers. She was the only real competition they had in court, beauty, brains and ruthlessness is a killer combination.

“You should have asked her to work with you,” Eliza said, once the door had closed behind Margaret.

Burr shot her a sharp look, “Eliza, I wouldn’t trust anyone but a Hamilton to make up for what I lack.”

Sometimes Theo would swing through the office on lunch breaks with a bouquet tucked under one arm. She would rarely stay longer than half an hour, she was twenty years old with regular work from several New York papers. Eliza teased her that Angelica would not like her writing for the Gazette and Theo shrugged. “Just because the President is my aunt doesn’t mean I have to accept her politics blindly.”

“Perhaps you’ll make a politician of her yet,” Peggy laughed. It was funny, because it would never happen. Theo Bartow was a woman of ideas, not of policy.

Sometimes Eliza would stop outside the room that had once been Philippa’s and wonder how her daughter would have fitted into the wider world. If there were still a need for war or standing armies, she would have made a fine soldier. Most likely she would have stayed helping Peggy until some better prospect demonstrated itself to her. Or she would have boarded a ship and left America never to return. She was just like her father, after all.

If Burr found her crying, as they would often do, they would hover on the edge of her emotional cloud and wait for permission to be let in. Sometimes their reticence was a kindness, though Eliza would be hard pressed to think of a time when the gentle press of their hand to the small of her back wasn’t a comfort.

Marthe’s room seemed to be eternally filled with flowers in varying states of decay. Bee balms, cardinals, sorrel, thistles. Eliza would think her a botanist if it weren’t for the fact that every new bouquet seemed to match the last she had seen Theo carrying. Sometimes there would be poetry, scratched out in a familiar hand, lying on Marthe’s bed. The French girl had far too much gall to hide it.

The girls…the young women…would return from the garden with garlands woven for each other, and never with mud stained clothes. Eliza watched them from the kitchen window: Theo tall and slim with her hair braided tight against her scalp; Marthe’s wide hips swinging in time with her long locks. They would hold hands, because they did not care who saw them, but were sheepish when confronted about the matter in words.

“Let them be,” Burr urged Eliza. As if she had any intention of disturbing them.

Meanwhile in Washington, Angelica continued her Presidency. She sent Eliza increasingly irascible letters she sent up from the capital. She had fallen pregnant and found the physical drawbacks of her condition most irksome. _My back aches something terrible, it’s worse than the vomiting. How did you manage it?_

Sometimes Jefferson would scrawl well wishes for Marthe and Eliza on the bottom of these letters. Inviting them to come to Washington City and experience the thrill of political discourse once again.

Eliza had had enough political discourse to last a lifetime, Theo had always had an appetite for it. “I mean, it wouldn’t hurt the quality of my writings if were to be in Washington for a time…”

“She gets that from your side of the family,” Burr said, only half joking as they met Eliza’s eyes, “all that writing and research. That’s a Hamilton thing.”

“Write like you’re running out of time,” Eliza whispered to Theo when her father was out of earshot. Somewhere between all the words, it was decided that would take Jefferson up on the offer.

So the preparations began, the hiring of a carriage and the packing up that needed to be done when one was going away for a long time. Save a few trips upstate to Albany, Eliza had barely left the city in twenty years. Her hands skipped with nervous excitement as she drew covers over the furniture and tidied up the cases her and Burr still had going. She reached into the back of her wardrobe for dresses she had not worn in years and was delighted to see that they still fitted.

Burr caught her trying on a light blue gown that Eliza was sure she had been wearing on the night she met Alexander. “Beautiful.”

Ruffling through the fabric that lay strewn across the bed they shared, Eliza found a dress from the end of the war. Dark blue with less ostentatious skirting than most of her clothes from that time. She held it up, across Burr’s body. Let her hand slide it against the curve of their hip to get a sense of how it would fit.

Burr did not wear dresses and skirts, they had always stuck to traditionally masculine clothing. A woman could now wear any clothing that she liked, and so no one saw anything odd in one person keeping strictly to breeches.

All the same, Eliza could not help but imagine Burr in that dark blue dress. She thought they would look wonderful.

A hand came up to cover hers, pushing away. What a shame. Eliza dropped the dress back on the bed with a disappointed sigh, but Burr pulled her back in before she could return to her packing. They set her hand back at their hip and slid a hand up to cradle the back of her head and pull her in – they were almost the same height.

As if in retribution for all the times they had been too cautious, Burr kissed Eliza like the past didn’t have to matter. History was a fickle mistress, it had to be let go. You had to learn to unclench your hand from all you had lost before you drowned in wasted memories. They worked together and lived together and raised children together and right now they were breathing the same air. How could that not be enough?

It was just a kiss. Which is to say, it was no more than a kiss, for it was bigger than any perfunctory press of one set of lips on another. “Pack the dress,” Burr breathed. Eliza didn’t need to be told twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the massive delay on this chapter - the past week has been a real mental health shit show for me and I honestly couldn't stomach editing it
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's commented <3


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Congress always made New York feel mighty.

Congress always made New York feel mighty. Even as it was shuffled from building to building in search of a permanent home, it was a thing of wonder. When Philippa Hamilton had entered the Cabinet and dragged the greatest ladies of the nation to the port, it had felt like a wild and precocious act.

Washington City was built for politics, and most of the people who lived there did so with this in mind. It was small and understated. The building that would one day be the capitol was still under construction as the government tried to find leeway in levied taxed to pay for it. The Presidential residence was indistinguishable from the other houses that peppered the town. Identical buildings, thrown together as efficiently as they could be. When Eliza stepped out of the carriage, Angelica was wearing a finely tailored suit of pastel pink - a flower growing in a swamp.

That wasn’t the first thing Eliza noticed about her sister, however. The most noticeable aspect of her person was the flatness of her belly, and the deep set circles under her eyes. She looked exhausted and elated, beset by that strange mixture of pride in herself and all the world around her that is particular to new mothers.

“I thought you still had a week to give birth! I hoped we would be here for the happy day,” Eliza pulled her sister into a hug, eyes scanning the building behind her for some sign of the child.

Angelica snorted, “I was due yesterday, though Catharine was born two weeks ago.”

They tumbled inside. Marthe was ecstatic to be seeing some of America aside from New York, Theo was perhaps a little disappointed with the drabness of the capital. They all smiled wide just the same. It was odd to see the two familiar halves of Eliza’s life pushed together, finding strange ways to intermingle. Her sister's willful independence and her children's unhesitating curiosity, meeting where politics and knowledge and family intersected. 

Angelica’s home was fit to bursting with books and papers, as her lodgings had been in New York. Blankets, baby clothes and bottles had moved in to claim what little space was left, while contraptions made of wood and string were balanced on every horizontal surface. "Thomas," Angelica said by way of explanation when she caught Eliza staring, "she invents things."

“How is motherhood treating you?” Burr asked.

Either Angelica was lacking the energy to draft up withering responses to Burr’s questions on the spot, or she had left her combative edge at work. “Exhausting, and wonderful. I’ve never been so happy to be distracted.”

Sisterly privilege granted Eliza first rights to see baby Catherine. “I figured that you waited till our father was gone to name a child after him, so now mother has departed it was only fair I name my first after her.” Angelica said, as if it were a rather matter of fact thing to say and not tactlessly morbid. Eliza didn’t mind. She squeezed her sister’s hand and followed her up the stairs, tiptoed down the corridor, and peaked into the master bedroom.

Thomas was laid out on the bed, still fully dressed in familiar bright purple. Her hair had grown so long and thick that it served in place of a blanket over her, and the sleeping form in her arms. Catherine Schuyler Jefferson was sound asleep, as was her mother, and the baby seemed to glow with potential and wonder. Such a rare thing, a new life. They were so lucky to have her.

“She is-“ Eliza started, but did not know how to finish.

“She outshines the morning sun.” Angelica seemed unaware that her sister was standing next to her. Her eyes were fixed on her love and her child, a most curious expression of calm pride on her face.

She was satisfied. Eliza had never seen such a thing in her life. Peggy would not believe it true until the following spring when Angelica returned to New York for the summer, for truly, it was a sight to behold.

The wake of a birth was the best and worst time to visit a relative. The best because Eliza got to see her sister’s family falling into place, to fill in when the management of the house and two political careers became too much. The worst because she took up space, and at a time that is inevitably filled with well-wishers. She had to dodge the friends, political and personal, who crossed the threshold. It was a relief that the girls were old enough to keep themselves out of trouble.

“Thanks.” Thomas mumbled, coming into the kitchen three hours late for dinner and helping herself to a bowl of stew. She didn't bother to set a fire to heat it through. Angelica was grateful for the food, seeing as she could not cook to save her life and Thomas’s repertoire was nothing save pasta.

“I love you, but if I ever eat macaroni and cheese again it will be too soon.” Angelica smiled up at Thomas from the dining room table as she nursed Catherine.

Catherine was a vocal little thing when awake, and like Philippa before her, she slept well. Marthe was spectacular with her, rocking her gently and letting her fiddle with her locks. “Would that my mother could see you.” 

The baby babbled, tiny hands holding tight to the offered hair. Her eyes were the brightest thing about her, the combined confidence and wit of her parents already reflecting out into the world.

“She’s going to be a handful,” Burr said.

Angelica looked for a moment like she might have something derisive to counter with. How dare Burr say such things about her daughter? But her expression soon relaxed into one of pride, “I know.” Their family would be nothing without opinionated trouble makers.

They no longer lived in a time when a new mother could take all the time in the world to paper her children and recover from childbirth. Eliza did not envy her sister that. Angelica still had to take visits from congresswomen and to carry out her daily Presidential duties, whether she had a new-born or not. Theo was delighted to make herself useful in the few instances that she could stand in for her aunt but these were few and far between. 

Thomas was torn between neglecting her congressional duties,and handing over the house to Eliza and Burr. She desperately wanted the experience of full time motherhood, but political debate was in her bloodstream. The thought of everything rumbling on without her set her teeth on edge.

“I swear, if this country could pause its politics for a year and let me see to my family, that would be enough,” Thomas grumbled. Catherine asleep in one arm while the other answered letters from troubled constituents.

Theo for one was delighted by the responsibility placed on her by her aunt to carry messages between her and congress. She loved the thrill of being the first person to hear the news, even if she had no way to get it to New York in a timely manner. As ever, she was full of questions, begging to understand the arguments that led them to the place in which they stood. Angelica tried to tell her she would make a fine politician, and was surprised at the lack of enthusiasm the praise encountered.

“It is easier to be rational about politics from the outside,” Theo said in a voice that could have been her mothers. 

Eliza and Burr stepped out into the garden. Under cover of the bushes that neither Angelica nor Thomas had the patience to tame, they held each other close until the shock had passed.

They offered Angelica and Thomas relief from their social duties, which were numerous and constant. Every new invite to dinner parties and dances would be thrown in Eliza’s direction, to attend or not as she saw fit. Sometimes it was easiest to just send the girls, who were keen enough on babies and politics but had little else to interest them in Washington. They would always coordinate their dresses so that at least some part of the colour or shape matched the other, then would step out, hand in hand.

Angelica watched them go with knowing eyes. Eliza shrugged, “they are young and pretty and have a great deal in common. It is hardly unexpected.”

There would be other times that it seemed only appropriate that Eliza go alone. It could be a difficult thing to persuade people that they were not being slighted when they asked for the President and got her sister. As a young girl, she would not have been able to manage the scrutiny. As a grown woman and a practitioner of the law, she knew how to fall into people’s good graces despite their prejudices against her. More often than not, people would recognise her from the old days. They would struggle to put a name to her face but would remember that there had been a woman who hovered on the edge of the great works of government. Never asked for any more than the inches she was given.

“Eliza!” Esther de Berdt recognised her in an instant, pulling her into a warm embrace. “Dear Lord, it has been too long.”

Angelica still kept Esther on as Treasury secretary. She was doing wonders for American manufacturing and had managed to birth a stable national bank to house the amalgamated debt of the states. She was still soft spoken and prone to nervous twitches, but her mind was sharp and her vision thorough. They would need to search long and hard to find someone as well suited to the position as her, should she ever choose to step down.

Though she had been sent to play diplomat and sit pretty round Esther’s table, Eliza could not deny the thrill of reconnecting with an old friend. Other women filed through the door, none of whom she recognised save the aging Dolley Payne, but just for a moment it felt like the repayment of a favour. All these women crowded into someone else’s home. To make policy and reassure themselves that they were strong enough to do this themselves. It mattered little that the faces round the table had changed.

Esther handed Eliza an invite to a ball as she left, the date set for a week before they were supposed to return to New York. Eliza thanked her and hurried back to Angelica’s house. Trying to keep the details of the conversations she needed to report straight.

“We already have an invite.” Thomas tutted under her breath as Eliza relayed details of difficult trade routes and the possibility of gaining extra land out to the West. “I suppose we’ll all have to go.”

And so it was that they all went to the ball. which required a good deal more stress over the colour and cut of articles of clothing than any one event ever should. Thomas and Angelica wore matching gowns of deep maroon, each with a sash across the front that Catherine could be wrapped in. Theo wore a blue dress with pink ribbons in her hair, while Marthe wore a pink dress and tied her hair back with blue streamers. Eliza hovered over the black dress sitting at the bottom of her luggage. She hadn’t meant to bring it, but seeing it there brought back memories of that Christmas, when they had all been so happy and so sad. When Philippa had pushed her aunt under the mistletoe with the woman she would make a home with.

They had never mourned quite like that for Philippa. Losing a child and a sister is different to losing a wife and mother, and the same. All grief is familiar and unrecognisable in the same breath. The tears and sobs and hopeless gazing out into the night look different on different people. Eliza felt the raging sting of guilt and reached for the black dress, determined that she should remind people of all she has lost.

Burr stopped her with a careful hand, pushing the black dress back into the depths of Eliza’s luggage. “Don’t. Please.” They pushed her aside and began to search through the travel chest themselves, till they stood back with a dress in each hand.

In Burr’s right hand was a dress of deep bottle green, the colour Alexander had been wearing on their wedding day. Eliza’s breath caught and Burr must have seen, but if they thought they had picked unwisely they did not let on. They held out the gown for Eliza to take, and she let her fingers fall across the silk, till she held it on her own. She promised herself she would not be rendered helpless in the face of a colour.

In their left hand, Burr held the blue dress. That was an easier problem to crack. Eliza undid the clasps and zips to let them step inside it with hesitant feet and hesitant hands. They pulled the cloth up and over their shoulders like they did not know if they were ready for this.

Good, Eliza thought as she pulled on the green dress, that made two of them.

Burr didn’t know how to do a dress up by themselves or straighten out the skirts once they were done. They did not know how to carry themself so that it did not drag too much across the floor. Eliza managed the first two tasks for them, and they shared a look of silent laughter when Burr struggled with the third.

“This is so weird,” Burr mumbled as they took Eliza’s arm and joined the rest of the family in their walk to the town hall.

“You look lovely Papa!” Theo exclaimed upon seeing the two of them. Eliza quite agreed. The dark blue silk, untainted by lace or embroidery or any other colour, looked as if it had been spun just for Burr’s sake. They looked like the night sky, where the whites of their eyes and the glint of their teeth were the stars.

The ball was much the same as any other ball. A novelty in Washington, perhaps, but less so for anyone who had come from New York. All the same, the swirl of colour was a happy break from the drab brownness of the capital. Women in all manner of dress, and in every colour imaginable, spun each other through the steps of dances that were as familiar to Eliza as they had been when she was twenty. She watched Theo and Marthe disappear into the crowd, perfectly balanced in every way, and squeezed Burr’s hand to see them go.

“We shall have to write to Adrienne and ask her to help sponsor the wedding,” Burr noted dryly, but their eyes shone. Eliza could not help herself, not even in public. She leant in to kiss Burr, and let her lips linger against theirs.

Some people found it touching, others found it lewd, most did not notice. Eliza was sure the spirit of Alexander Hamilton must have come to rest in green silk, for even as she let herself be spun through minuets and gavottes, every swish of her skirt seemed to stir new impatience in her. First she wanted to dance with no one but Burr, then she began to resent every moment the dance cast her out of their hands.

Her hands itched to lay themselves upon the blue silk, or to demonstrate how it might be divested of its owner. Excitement was stirring in her belly of the sort she had not allowed herself to pay heed to for years. She did not know how to temper it, for the first time since Alexander had left, she did not want to.

“Do you think…” Burr started slowly. The stars in their eyes seemed bright enough to drown out the moon.

“They will be able to find their way home without us.” Eliza grabbed Burr’s hand, and together they fled back across town, to the house piled with politics and papers and baby bottles. The door closed behind them. and without lighting a single candle they found each other. The hot press of one mouth against the other like wildfire, the thumping of their hearts like a battle drum.

Perhaps this was how it felt when Alexander took John Laurens in the shelter of their shared tent. Eliza let her thoughts be bitter. She was justified, she was eager. Burr curled hands into her hair and dragged them both towards the staircase.

Theodosia had been a physical passion born of the kindred of two hearts. With Burr, the kindred hearts and the moving bodies were two separate halves of what Eliza wanted from them. It took far too long, to get to the bedroom and undress and fall beneath the covers. It had taken them far too long to get to Washington.

“I love you,” Eliza hissed against the heat of Burr’s hand between her legs. She meant it, she didn’t try not to feel guilty. The guilt was there whether she looked it in the eye or not

Burr was made to be shared, “I love you too.”

The night rolled on and on, into them and around them. Muscles woke from long forgotten slumber, again and again. The slip and slide of sweat and skin, the feeling of something within her, it had been too long. Eliza cried out at the injustice of her guilty heart, then rocked forward to meet Burr in the middle of the scant space between their bodies. Again and again, until the sun rose over Washington city.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in New York, life continued on as normal, and as if someone had rearranged the furniture while they had been gone.

Back in New York, life continued on as normal, and as if someone had rearranged the furniture while they had been gone. The question of Theo and Marthe had been replaced by certainty. So much as they all still valued each other’s company, it felt as if they were now two pairs living in a house built for one unit.

Burr spotted the solution to the problem almost immediately, “there is another house, you know.”

Truthfully, Eliza had forgotten about the other house years ago, it seemed a moot point in the fabric of their lives. As she tore back the sheets that had covered the drawing room, she imagined the dust clouds that would rise when one set foot in those disused halls.

She frowned, “whose house was it again?”

“Mine and Theodosia’s.”

Eliza felt bile rising in her throat. Burr had taken her, just that morning, in the master bedroom upstairs. The room in which she had done the same to Theodosia, the room her and Alexander had shared for those bitterly short weeks he had come home to her. She tore through the house, out into the garden where she vomited into the roses.

Everything in that garden was a rose, the bloody things had taken over. Eliza would be damned if she knew how to whip them back into shape. Burr appeared at her elbow bearing a cup of water and a reassuring hand to rub between her shoulder blades. She didn’t flinch away, but it was a close thing.

So in between interviewing clients, reviewing past cases and legal precedent and trying to stay on top of the work of the new Government, Eliza and Burr went out searching for the house that was lost. They walked the length of the city, hand in hand. Some days they were earnest and quick with their inquiries. Other days it felt more like an excuse to enjoy each other’s company, away from their work and the rest of their family. Eliza still felt a swoop of guilt in her lower stomach every time she leaned in to kiss Burr, but it was not enough to stop her. Nor was it enough to stop her buying them a ribbon of dark blue silk, which she tied around their wrist for want of any hair to weave it through.

Burr smiled at her like a secret, and Eliza felt treasured. She was giddy and stable all at once under their hands. Exploring the city together because it looked new and exciting in the light of each other’s smiles.

Sometimes the guilt would still prove too much, like Alexander’s rapier wit had returned to sucker punch Eliza into submission. She woke one morning, and barely managed to disentangle herself from Burr’s arms in time to make it to the chamber pot.

“You need to stay home today, get some rest.” They whispered through the dark. They did not flinch away when she threw up, they were past that.

Eliza lay in bed till long after the sun was up, wrestling with her guilt and her nausea. She heard Theo and Marthe laughing as the front door swung closed and tried to let the quiet of the morning seep into her bones. Only there was no quiet, the city never sleeps. She was restless as green silk skirts swirling through the dance. She wanted Burr to come home and hold her hand. She wanted Alexander to emerge back out of the mist and reclaim what was his. She wanted Theodosia to stand firm between her husband and her friend.

She wretched over the bed and missed the chamber pot. Vomit splattered across the floor and her hand came up to cradle her disquiet belly, rubbing circles into the stiffened muscles under her fingers. Trying to dispel the guilt physically.

Her belly.

A chill ran through Eliza’s bones that had nothing to do with the sickness. She begin to count days in her head, when they had left Washington, the ball, how many weeks since…

Again, she missed the chamber pot when she wretched. Eliza whimpered against the force of her shame. She should have bled three weeks ago, and she did not. She muttered desperately about delays to these things and the affect that illness can have on the normal running of the body, but she knew. She thought about Catherine, gurgling happily in Angelica and Thomas’ arms, and cursed herself for being so reckless. The guilt burned up high enough to drown out the nausea and Eliza tore herself from the bed.

She still had crates of Alexander’s things stashed around the house, under beds and at the backs of cupboards. She tore through them all, sending up great clouds of dust along with his papers and all the clothes he had never come back to reclaim. There was so much green amongst them, had he really been a creature of such habit? Eliza couldn’t be sure any more. She remembered Alexander like fireworks that she had foolishly thought she could bind to the earth, she forgot he was a bureaucrat.

She found what she was looking for in the crate under Philippa’s old bed. No sooner had Eliza slid her hands under the lid, than she felt the smooth handle of a pistol inside. She pulled the whole thing open and saw its brother lying next to it, a perfect pair. They were beautiful in that way men liked to make beautiful tools of death. Like they might have been able to persuade themselves that the act of killing was an art and not a horror.

Eliza picked one up and let her finger slide over the trigger, her eyes narrowed over the sight. She could do this.

The challenge was simple, a note scribbled in haste and left on the dining room table. Eliza felt her stomach lurch as she wrote. Burr had snuck into her affections, Burr had put her in a position where she had fallen in love with them, Burr had put a baby in her belly. Worst of all, Burr had come back from war and Alexander had not. Unforgivable.

 _I am slow to anger, but I toe the line. As I reckon with the effects of your life on mine, I look back on where I’ve failed and in every place I’ve checked the only common thread has been you. I hope that you burn. Stand: Weehawken, dawn. Guns drawn. I’ll bring the pistols_.

Eliza knew she was not being fair, and still she wrote. She had had enough of sitting to the side waiting for the universe to rectify the great unfairness it had placed upon her shoulders. Just because she had reached a point where she had wanted Burr did not mean she was ever supposed to want them. She was supposed to be ready, waiting for Alexander when he came back up the garden path and into her arms so they could start their lives together. And then this strange little thing neither man nor woman had come along. Offered her a job, been a part of her family, and dragged her on through life before she could look back.

She did not want to be shared. Despite herself, Eliza was a Hamilton with pride. She had never cared much for her honour. But as she named the dueling grounds at Weehawken the final place she would look Aaron Burr in the eye, she could not help but defend her husband’s

Tucking the second pistol under her arm, Eliza left the house without a key, without a thought for anything that she was leaving behind. She let rage and guilt cloud her mind till the streets all looked the same, and her feet carried her along a path that she had long forgotten. One she had trodden often in the early days of the Vanishment.

When she looked up she was standing outside the house she had thought of only as Theodosia’s. The dust rose up to greet her, rushing to her lungs and making Eliza cough. The ghosts of her past were all that was left in that place, nipping at her fingers, wrapping tight around her neck. Dragging her back into an age when the clean cut lines of right, wrong and matrimony were more clearly marked in her mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is a schedule? What is life? I don't even need to write this thing I just need to post it. Don't look at me


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was fog in the morning, so thick that the city seemed darker than the night.

There was fog in the morning, so thick that the city seemed darker than the night. The stars had been chased away, and it was only by closing her eyes and trusting her feet to guide her that Eliza made it to the river’s edge unharmed. New York has a current to it, one that she had been navigating for years, throwing her life into the hands of instinct that should know better.

She wouldn’t risk a lamp. The last thing she wanted was to be stopped by law enforcement and have to spin a lie to cover her tracks. Eliza wasn’t trying to be dishonest, just reckless. Dueling was hardly a common practice, it probably wouldn’t have even occurred to anyone she might have met that that might be her purpose. The lie would have been easy, but it would have stung nonetheless.

Onward, listening for the rustle of other bodies braving the fog. The unending chatter and festivities, work and hardship that poured from every second house. Only ever half asleep at once, that was her New York. It occurred to her that this might be the last time she ever saw it, shrouded, unyielding. She wasn’t sure she could live with that, till she remembered that she wouldn’t have to.

That was assuming Burr even showed up. Eliza was hardly an expert on dueling etiquette. For all she knew she had flouted the code of honour and destroyed any chance at having her challenge met. Perhaps there were other steps that were supposed to lie between now and the great finale. It was a moot point as far as she was concerned, even now her anger at being so seduced felt like a living thing writhing in her bones. She would kill the person who put it there if that was what it took, or die trying.

Burr was an experienced soldier, they would know how to aim straight and true. Eliza had never fired a gun in her life, but it couldn’t be so hard. Just point and click. They used to give these things to boys and send them off to war; if there was one thing the past twenty years had taught her it was that women had the capability to just about anything that men had been able to do. They couldn’t start wars so easily, that much was true, and it was infinitely harder to produce children. But otherwise…

People used to beg Burr to sleep with them in the fond hope they might find themselves with child. They would say Eliza was a fool to act as she did, Eliza would tell them they did not know what she had lost, they could not possibly imagine. What kind of person impregnates a married woman at forty?

Her treacherous brain threw the memory of blue silk and starry skies in her face. She knew, dear God she knew. But she if she was the traitor, then the only way she could proceed was to remove the temptation.

The fog cleared as she approached the river. Just enough for the black of the water to blink up at her, lapping gently at the edges of Manhattan island. This was not the dock, just a fishing pier, with dinghies lined up, neat rope and knots, ready to be plucked by whoever should venture to do so. When she was a child, Eliza had spent countless summer days on the lake at the upstate Schuyler mansion in boats just like these. Angelica never had much patience for rowing, and Peggy was too small, so it had been here job to keep them all afloat.

Her head was still above the water. Eliza flinched at the sound of her feet hitting the wood of the pier, every echo a reminder of the danger that lay ahead. The pistols pressed against her side, insistent of cautionary, she could not tell. And all the while, the sounds of New York’s never-sleep threatened to lure her back in to the life she had built for herself.

Eliza shook the thought straight out of her head, she had not built this on her own back, which was the whole point. She had sat like a frightened rabbit in her home till Burr had pulled her into work, pushed her into bed with their wife. Burr who had sat on the edges of political discourse while Eliza sat in the other room, so smug, as if to say ‘my passiveness outweighs yours’. And if that was how she remembered it, then that was how it had been.

“They left about half an hour ago.”

Heart hammering like the drums of war, Eliza turned to see who had followed her. A thousand excuses, flooded her mind as she prepared to come face to face with a law enforcer. She did not want to lie, but she would.

At the end of the pier stood a figure in red so bright it shone, even without the the stars to light it up. Such richly dyed fabrics were hard to come by, and yet when Eliza looked back she would never be able to think of a time this woman was not dressed in them.

Red for passion, red for lust, red for warning. None of them made much sense when it came to Maria Reynolds. Maybe in another life she might have been the type of woman to inspire passion and lust in weak men who did not heed the warning. But the woman Eliza knew was careful and steady. More perceptive than most people gave her credit for and soft in all the ways Peggy was hard.

She would sit for hours, braiding Theo’s hair. She knew famous faces at first glance. What an odd creature. Eliza looked at her and felt every lie turn to dust in her mouth. There was no point, Maria might not be able to stop her but she would call her bluff immediately.

Breathe. “You mean Burr?”

Maria nodded, “they had a doctor with them. Margaret Shippen is their second.”

A doctor. Eliza should have thought of that. She should have read a little more widely, she should have known.

Without another word, Maria marched up the pier and set to work untying one of the dinghies. “This one belongs to a friend of mine. She won’t mind us borrowing it so long as we bring it back, and it’s bigger than most of the other’s here. If the wind picks up it will be harder to blow off course.”

“A friend?” Eliza asked, because she dare not question the good fortune of receiving Maria’s assistance rather than her scorn.

Maria smiled, she did not shine like the sun but the world seemed to thaw. “All the fisherwomen are my friends.”

The boat came free and sat, bobbing on the end of its tether. Maria held it still while Eliza climbed in and set the oars in their sockets. From below the line of the pier, the banks loomed, intimidating and hostile. The world looked so much wider like this, and so much less welcoming.

She was in, she was settled. Eliza was ready, “ok.” She would brave the rest of this ordeal alone.

She did not expect Maria to hitch up her skirts, jump in after her, and push them both away from the pier. Eliza reached with an oar to pull them back in to port, “what are you doing?”

“You need a second.” Maria said, and her voice was heavy with preeminent grief. She could have been anywhere in the world tonight, and she decided to bear witness to the sum total of her sister-in-law’s sins. She was more than Eliza deserved, “you better explain your grievance to me. I shall have to negotiate with Margaret.”

Words are wind, though not enough to clear the fog. Eliza spoke of the cruelty of fate and the audacity of Burr as the boat cut a line across the rippling surface of the river. A hundred meters out she looked back and couldn’t see the shoreline, though the sounds of the city carried across the water. She tried to explain the rage coiling in her gut without entangling it in her guilt, if such a thing were possible. It didn’t make for a very convincing argument, but then again, no convincing argument ever had to be settled with pistols.

Maria had always been a good listener, she rowed steady with eyes as wide as the moon that caught the lip of the boat and stayed there. “You never got the life you wished for, and you blame Burr for leading you further from your chosen path than you would have been otherwise.” Maria does not judge, she speaks the truth and then you judge yourself.

“And I am an adulterer by them and their wife. And I am…I am pregnant with their child,” Eliza stuttered over the words like they would only truly have power once spoken. Then quieter, in the hope Maria might not hear her, “and I can’t very well shoot myself.”

Angelica would have told her that the heart wants what the heart wants and that killing the object of her desires would not change that. Peggy would have pointed out that the courts would be unlikely to try her without Alexander around to take objection to her infidelity. Theodosia would have laughed and told her there were more important things to worry about.

Not Maria Reynolds. There was no matter in this world more important than people, and if you do not let out your sins they will stay with you. They rowed on in silence, matching each other stroke for stroke. As the first milky light of the rising sun began to rise through the fog, the shores of New Jersey came into view.

These banks were not bathed in blood, that was a plague for another lifetime. The pistols hung heavy at Eliza’s side. She reached into her cloak to wrap a hand around one of them, feeling the cool of the polished wood like a balm against her raging heart. Maybe that was why men had waged wars, what they felt had been terrible and it was easier to place it outside their bodies than within.

No wonder Philippa had fallen prey to the lure of Weehawken. It’s hard to care if you’re misunderstood when there’s a gun in your hand. It had been four years since that terrible morning, not so different from this one, when two young women had taken up arms and one had fallen. Right and wrong. Satisfaction. It was that simple.

Burr stood in the middle of the dueling ground with empty palms, even in the early morning sun they looked like stars. There was so much light within them, so much life. Eliza was struck by a sudden vision of Burr falling to the ground in the wake of a gunshot, and wanted to run into their arms and find forgiveness.

She searched her heart and found no forgiveness therein. Eliza sucked in a shaking breath, trying to commit the feeling of oxygen in her lungs to memory. She might not be breathing much longer.

“Eliza,” Burr started towards her.

Blue silk, dark night, long walks in the garden, shared history, look at where they were, look at where they started. Eliza hardened. Let her be Hermione, unchanging and detached in this tale of lost kings. If she could have erased herself from this narrative, she would.

Maria caught her before she turned to stone, leaving her with a mouthful of sand. She did not have it in her to speak.

Thank God for seconds. Eliza shrank into a corner of the clearing and pretended Burr wasn’t watching her with desperate confusion. How could she do this? How could she be so unfair? How could she stand across from a person who she loved and was loved by and decide that killing them would be easier than living with the guilt of a life she could never have?

Margaret Shippen appeared at Burr’s side, babbling about the doctor who stood downstream so she could plead deniability. Then she turned to Maria and started speaking of absurdity and poor decision making. Eliza caught every second word, she did not need to listen with purpose, she already knew she was in the presence of a great lawyer.

“There’s no precedent for this!” Margaret crowed, as if that should be the final word on the matter. The sun had fully peaked over the horizon, the fog nearly burned away.

Of course there was no precedent. Eliza wasn’t looking for precedent, just peace of mind, and Maria was no lawyer.

“She will not yield,” when Maria turned back to face Eliza, her eyes were sad. But her voice was firm.

“We should go back to the city,” Margaret mumbled to Burr.

There was a war being waged within Burr’s unchanging skin. Or maybe the war had never left them, and it was only now with the thrill of bloodlust and the misery of death hanging over her that Eliza could see the full extent of the grief they carried. They stood still, like the two armies had come to a head and neither one would be able to push on until a victor was declared. The hesitation held the two of them in the cradle of the rising sun, waiting for things to look clearer in the light of day.

Except death doesn’t hesitate, and war obliterates. You have to bite bullets sooner or later.

Burr shrugged Margaret off and pulled their pistol from their pocket. “If Eliza wants to duel me, I won’t stop her.”

The warning wouldn’t make sense till several hours later, in the aftermath. Eliza was running on little sleep and too many emotions. Her fingers tightened over smooth wood as she drew the weapon from its hiding place. It looked so big in her hand, like a toy, like a great responsibility. She doubted Philippa had felt small when she looked down the barrel of her gun and up at the sky all at once.

Maria and Margaret led them towards each other, till they stood face to face. This was the final test, if you still want to kill a person when you can see the whites of their eyes then it had to be a cause worth dying for. Only the whites of Burr’s eyes were visible across the night sky, and all the love Eliza felt for their patience and their faith could not outweigh their caution and opportunism.

“I will count out ten paces. Then you may turn and fire on each other,” Margaret Shippen’s voice wavered, just a little. It would never do that in court.

For a moment, Eliza caught Burr’s eye and it was as if they were the last two human’s left on Earth. Imagine that, all the great wide world before you and the only way you can think to solve a problem is with guns.

“One!” Margaret’s voice cracked like a whip. Eliza and Burr turned away from each other.

After that it was almost easy. “two, three, four, five, six, seven,” if Eliza faltered it was just for a moment, Philippa wouldn’t have wanted her to, “eight, nine-“

Ten paces.

Only as Eliza turned to face Burr did she remember that she was wearing the green silk dress. Alexander lay close against her skin, swishing around her ankles and making the air seem thick, hard to breathe and hard to move through. Her heart slammed against her ribs, trying to dash itself to death on the stone she would have herself be born of.

And Burr came dressed in black, their funeral. Eliza Hamilton had a will of steel and she would not be shared. She felt nauseous just to look at them, the great monster of guilt ripping at her insides, urging her on. You have to kill the things that try to kill you, and you have to exorcise your demons.

He hand came up, pistol aimed as squarely as she could manage at Burr’s heart. Look them in the eye, aim no higher, summon all the courage you require…

She didn’t need courage, she needed absolution.

Perhaps there were tears in Burr’s eyes, perhaps that was just the guilt talking. They shimmered before Eliza, their outline insubstantial and beyond her comprehension. So she did not try to comprehend. All she saw was the barest wisp of a figure, one hand reaching up to touch the stars.

Eliza tightened her finger over the trigger and the snare grew taught. Twin thunder echoed loud enough to wake the dead, the peals overlapping and roaring at each other, out across the river and up towards the city. All New York would be awake by now. She waited for the adrenaline to wear off and the pain of a bullet hole. To be dragged back into the reality she so sorely wished she could leave on the morning Angelica had come to tell her the men were gone.

It never came, not even after her ears stopped ringing from the gun shots and her pulse no longer felt like a drumbeat. The smell of gunpowder hung heavy in the air, and as the smoke cleared she looked down and saw that green was still green.

Black would always be black, but it looked so pretty lined up next to red. Twenty paces away from her, Burr lay in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by a pool of blood. Eliza’s hand slipped from the pistol, and she screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe this is the longest chapter. 
> 
> I also believe it is the most stressful chapter - enjoy


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The monster in her gut did not die, it wasn’t even wounded.

The monster in her gut did not die, it wasn’t even wounded. Eliza’s hands shook too violently to take up the oars, so Maria and Margaret steered them back across the river. The morning sun in their eyes, lighting up the water like crystal. They had left the pistols back in the clearing, had stuck them into the ground to choke the barrels. They didn’t have enough time for burials and they risk taking the weapons with them. Nor could they bear to leave them in proper working order for the next foolish souls who braved the wrath of Weehawken to find. 

If the ghosts of the men were left in their world, they would have been strongest on that river bank in New Jersey, just south of the Hudson. The angry spirits of those who had never come home had been deprived of entertainment and new company for so very many years. It was a wonder they didn’t rise up and tear across the river, hot on the heels of the blood sacrifice they had lost.

Burr wasn’t dead. Eliza, as it transpired, was a terrible shot, better suited to defense than prosecution. There was a bullet in their leg though, trying to poison the blood or lose enough of it that the task of satisfaction might come to completion.

Eliza did not feel satisfied, then again she was a Hamilton, and that family never really did. The background noise of pregnancy and adultery faded to terror as she realised that even now, she might be responsible for a death.

There was so much blood, the red mingling with the green of her dress. Burr’s head was in Eliza’s lap as the doctor fussed with bandages and pliers designed to close wounds or open them as the medic saw fit. “They’re gonna have to lose this.”

Eliza might have asked what Burr had left to lose as they were carried through the streets to the doctor’s surgery. The blood oozing from their leg fed the monster, the rising guilt drowning out any words she might have found. She felt so nauseous.

She had to stop outside the surgery to vomit into the gutter while Burr went on without her. Maria stayed to hold back her hair and rub her back, but she could not offer any words of comfort. There was nothing that could be said. Eliza must have looked a mess, covered in blood and wreaking of vomit with dark rings under her eyes. This is what dueling gets you.

“You should go find Theo,” she rasped.

Maria shook her head, “you have to explain this to her.”

Good God. Eliza had shot her daughter’s father. What a mess. The creature beneath her skin shrieked in delight as she turned to enter the house. She climbed the stairs, following the sound of Burr’s pained groans up to an operating table.

The doctor took one look at her and shook her head, “out.”

Margaret and Maria each took an arm and led her from the room as nurses and assistants flooded in. They strapped Burr down to the table, uncorked bottles of bourbon and forced them to drink. Eliza saw saws and secateurs, clothes being cut from Burr’s body and a tourniquet applied. She was half way down the street before she realised the images were nothing more than her imagination.

“What will they-“ she started.

“Let’s get you home,” Margaret cut in, and then to Maria, “do you know the way?”

Eliza let her eyes cloud over as she was leg back to the house that had been hers and Alexander’s, aware that the three of them attracted attention she would rather not receive. Oh how she wished for fog.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If it had been her father that had been shot, Eliza would not have forgiven the assailant.

If it had been her father that had been shot, Eliza would not have forgiven the assailant. Her father had Vanished and she had never forgiven the universe for that, though she would like to. Imagine that, living without the weight of all that she had lost festering at the back of her mind like a disease, a bad smell. The roses were starting to rot in the garden, she still needed to clean the vomit from her bedroom floor.

Marthe pulled the washcloth out of her hands and told her to go and lie down. “I don’t deserve you,” Eliza said.

“Eliza, I love you and I can never repay you for the kindness of taking me in. But you can be so stubbornly obtuse sometimes.”

When Marthe said ‘stubbornly’ her accent made it sound like ‘stupidly’. Eliza liked that, she had been a prize fool. She kept a chamber pot to hand for the sake of her unsettled stomach, and every time she thought of Burr she wretched into it. Trying to purge the beast within.

Theo walked through the house as if Eliza didn’t exist. Talking loudly at all times of the night in French, like she had forgotten that all three of them could understand what she was saying. She left pages of her writings lying around and Eliza did not know if she was supposed to read them or not. She wanted to be a comfort to her daughter and she couldn’t bear to look her in the eye. Hovering on the edge of the emotional fallout of her actions, she thought she understood how Burr could stand to hold back while the world fell down around them.

 _Why did you do it?_ Reads one piece of paper.

“Because I am a fool,” Eliza said the next time she caught sight of Theo out of the corner of her eye.

Whipping round to see her in the cold light of day, Theo’s eyes were blank. She said nothing, she never learned how to let out her rage like Philippa.

Poor Philippa Hamilton. Eliza walked to Trinity Church to sit by her daughter’s grave and to tell her that she understood the need to end her anger. How it had been Burr that saw the error of her ways. “I thought they were reaching for the stars.” Eliza thought of Philippa and Burr, standing side by side with their pistols in the air.

It took three days for a messenger to arrive on their doorstep. Eliza thought she recognised the young women from the doctor’s surgery, but she could not be sure. She did not trust the person she had been that day to do much but haunt her for the rest of her life.

“Mrs Burr is stable, you may come see them now.”

Eliza told Marthe and Marthe told Theo, but Marthe would not accompany them. “I think for now, it better just be the two of you.”

They walked in silence, Eliza feeling the nausea rising hard and sharp in her throat. She had not eaten all day. There was nothing within her to throw up, though her body tried desperately to reject the image of Burr lying on a hospital bed, missing one of their legs. All because of her. Theo walked ahead of her, silent and scared but eager to see her father.

Through the front door, up the stairs, into the ward. Eliza hung back, trying not to look too hard, save her brain from picking out details that she did not want to see. There were green walls and white linen, an unfamiliar nurse fussing over a figure that she could not see but which must have been Burr.

She did not want to see. Theo rushed ahead and Eliza scrambled out of the room to stand on the landing, staring determinedly at her feet. She pushed the muffled rumble of father and daughter’s voices out of her mind, she did not want to know. She had to know. Her stomach clenched but nothing came up – she would need to suck the poison out herself.

People are so rarely in a hurry to meet their sins head on. Eliza felt removed from time and yet she knew that Theo was taking hers, trying to understand what had led the three of them to this place. If Theodosia could see them now she would despair, of Theo for being so silent, and Burr for entering into foolish plots. And Eliza, for being guilty and selfish and for holding her dead husband over them all like the sword of Damocles.

Eliza sucked in a sharp breath. Alexander wasn’t dead, he was gone. His soul was in green silk, his mind was in his writings, his heart was in her hand, so why could she not feel it beating?

Half an hour or half a year later, she could not be sure, Theo emerged from the ward. Her cheeks were stained with tears, but she had lost the look of hopeless sorrow from behind her eyes. Like this, Eliza could meet her gaze, though she felt herself shaking when she did so.

“How are they doing?” Eliza asked.

A pause, a consideration, what would you do? Theo’s lips pursed like she was trying to hold back the tide of words within, but words were made to be spoken. “You should go in and see for yourself.”

As they passed, Eliza reached out to squeeze Theo’s hand, and her daughter did not flinch away.

The nurses were gone, as was the blood, and in some ways that was comforting. Eliza’s breath caught as she looked around the empty room, searching for something to take hold of that would remind her of how she came to be there. There was nothing. Unfamiliar beds and the smell of rubbing alcohol, like the world had been scrubbed clean just for her. She didn’t deserve that.

When her eyes found Burr’s there were no fireworks. Only a great tearing as the parts of her that wanted to rage were cast off and the desire to go to them took over. Eliza nearly tripped over her skirts as she ran into Burr’s arms, sobbing against their chest. They were so warm, so alive and present. Their arms were weak around her but they did not let go. Pulling her in, letting her bury her face in the crook of their ribcage where she could hear their beating heart.

“I worried you wouldn’t come,” they whispered, “I thought you hated me.”

Eliza pulled back to see the stars in Burr’s eyes. She _had_ hated them, only for a moment here and there, but it had been enough. She shook her head, “not as much as I hate myself.”

If the beast raged at being spotted in amongst the undergrowth, Eliza didn’t feel it. She had cast it off along with her rage, now she was left with the guilt of leaning on the edge of Burr’s bed where a leg used to be and feeling nothing.

“You missed every major artery. You would have been terrible in a real firefight,” Burr laughed.

“Yeah, well you missed me entirely,” Eliza replied, then gasped at her own frivolity. “I shouldn’t joke about it.”

“It’s fine. I meant to miss you.”

“I didn’t. I’m sorry”

Tension and release, simultaneously. To be sorry you shot someone was not enough, the action did not exist without intent. The action could never be undone but the feeling behind it could. Though not until it was acknowledged that it had existed, for a short but terrible time. Eliza held her breath and waited to be pushed away, for this to be less easy. It wasn’t supposed to be easy, it was supposed to be purgatory, waiting for judgement to be lain across her soul.

Burr was not a judge, they were a lawyer. They took Eliza’s hand in theirs and held so tight it seemed they would never let go. “It’s fine.”

Forgiveness. Can you imagine?

The tears sprang answer in Eliza’s eyes and she pulled herself further into Burr’s embrace. Weeping into their shoulder, the familiar feel of their body against hers. Kissing them and kissing them and kissing them and not sure how she could ever repay them for this. She would have settled for rejection if that only meant they had lived. She did not deserve this, but she would take what she had been given and work with it, she would believe in magic.

“I’m pregnant,” She said into the shell of Burr’s ear. The nausea had faded to a background concern, and with a great swell of joy, she realised how lucky she was to be alive. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go!!! Finally....


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theo proposed to Marthe on the first day of spring, and on that day Eliza handed them the keys to the other house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After an inordinate amount of time spent fucking around, here's the last chapter

Theo proposed to Marthe on the first day of spring, and on that day Eliza handed them the keys to the other house. “You’ll have to be careful, it’s dusty over there.” It felt like an inevitability and a triumph. Looking at the beautiful young woman she had raised and the beautiful young woman she loved and seeing the future. There were those that cred doomsday as the number of pregnancies dwindled to a trickle and the more elderly of their number move into the next world. But they had a long way to go before the end of days. In the meantime there was life and love to be had, the whole wide world presenting itself for the taking.

When they had first suspected that the men would not return it had seemed like a curse. They had looked back through everything they didn’t know and wondered how they would ever survive. Eliza looked at the world as it was, most every woman with a profession and not a single one without an opinion. If the men were returned to them that day, it would not have been easy for any of them. For all the joy at seeing one’s brothers, sons, husbands and fathers could not undo the women they had grown to be.

“You see, we never needed them anyway,” Angelica said smugly as she burst through the front door. She could only stay for two weeks, but one look at Eliza let her know that she had chosen the right time to come. “You’re huge!”

Catherine had grown so much since they had last seen her, her hair starting to resemble the cloud of curls that Thomas sported. She wasn't yet walking but her first words were begining to take shape, and her first opinions already long formed. She liked kittens and maple syrup, and hated to be told no. Half the joy in raising a child is meeting the person they grow into before anyone else; soon enough that cycle would start again. 

Any day now. Eliza’s belly was swollen with the child she carried within, which kicked at the confines of her womb with great abandon. A whole new life, wrapped up inside her. She had forgotten the feeling of being pregnant, the exhaustion and the wonder. That a person could grow a whole life inside them was all the more incredible when so few got the chance to do so any more.

Burr hobbled out to meet their guests on crutches. They put a hand on Eliza’s shoulder to steady themselves and raised their free arm to pull the Washington contingent of their extended family into a hug.

“I can fix that,” Thomas said, gesturing to the place Burr's left leg used to be. Angelica rolled their eyes and muttered something about the grand designs of her inventor wife.

Not that Angelica and Thomas were formally married, but then again neither were Eliza and Burr, or Peggy and Maria. It seemed a silly distinction to make after all this time. They had built lives together, and if any priest tried to tell them that God required greater dedication than that to call a thing marriage they would laugh in her face. Marriage was for the young and bright, for those who wished to stand up and be counted. Eventually one found there was so much else to do that a public declaration of vows seemed an absurdity. 

With Theo and Marthe gone, the upper floor of the house had been all but abandoned. The old drawing room was now the bedroom. It had taken Eliza, Peggy and Margaret a full afternoon to get the bed down from the old master bedroom, but it made no sense to sleep upstairs when Burr found steps so trying. As her pregnancy had progressed, Eliza was glad of the excuse not to drag herself upstairs either. Having a whole extra person growing inside her was exhausting enough without the extra physical stress.

“So this is the room where it happens.” Thomas wiggled her eyebrows suggestively as she stuck her head into the new bedroom, “guess that means guests get the top floor.”

The next morning, one of the kitchen chairs had was missing its legs and has wheels attached to its sides. Thomas presented her creation with a flourish to Burr, who had no idea what to make of it.

“So I…”

“You sit in the chair, and you role yourself around or someone pushes you.”

Cautious as ever, Burr kept a tight grip on Eliza as they lowered themselves into the chair. They didn’t let go till they were sure it could take their weight, and the moved the wheels so slowly one would think they were in danger of falling off. After half an hour of careful movement around the house, they came to a stop at Thomas’s feet. “I need somewhere to rest my good leg and I’m keeping the crutches.”

“Noted.”

“But thank you.”

“I can’t believe it.” Peggy looked on aghast as Angelica cooed over Catherine and melted into spontaneous embraces with Thomas. The oldest Schuyler sister was less recognisable in New York than Washington, but people still stopped her to gawp at her presence. She had detractors in the city, but if any should decide they would like to go toe to toe with her in the streets, they would have quite the fight ahead of them. The gossip in New York City would always be insidious, and Angelica Schuyler would always have the greatest wit.

It was everything Angelica had ever wanted. She was satisfied. Peggy was gobsmacked. Maria sat down with Theo as her subject and Marthe and Thomas as her pupils to teach them how to braid hair. In the garden, the roses were growing strong in preparation for another summer. The law practice was on hold till Eliza had given birth and had time to recover, but it was not gone for good. Just you wait.

It was not the life she had imagined for herself aged twenty, but Eliza wasn’t twenty anymore. She had lost far too much in the intervening years to ever return to the hopeful, helpless girl she had once been. She had seen wonders great and small, rising oceans and falling empires. She had been born an English subject, someday far in her future she would die a free woman. All the green silk in the house had been gathered and folded into the space that two pistols used to occupy in the chest under Philippa’s old bed. If the soul of Alexander Hamilton had lived on in green silk, it was high time she put him to rest.

She had loved Alexander, she always would. But her love was wasted on the past. Burr’s voice was like velvet. Slipping over the words of Theodosia’s poetry in the privacy of their shared bed, and when they cried about what might have been they cried together. No hesitation, no restraint.

“Hamilton!” Thomas would bark any time she caught Eliza daydreaming. It was jarring, but it was nice to know that people still remembered Alexander.

They bought flowers for the people they had lost and left them at Theodosia and Philippa’s graves because there was nowhere else for them to go. Flowers for Alexander Hamilton, John Church, Martha Jefferson, Martha Washington, Catherine Schuyler, Philip Schuyler, Sally Burr, Gilbert du Motier, John Laurens, James Reynolds, Theodosia Bartow, Philippa Hamilton.

They could list the dead for hours, but every time they looked up the world was wide, and they were lucky to be alive.

A week into Angelica’s stay, Eliza was walking in the garden, waiting for the roses to bloom. Then her feet were wet with more than water, and the first contraction made her gasp. Birth is hard and painful, and it’s worth it. Peggy sent for a midwife while Maria prepared clean rags and water. Angelica helped Burr clear the bedroom of anything breakable or precious and Thomas ransacked the house for blankets and pillows. Theo and Marte scooped up Catherine and resolved to keep the child occupied for the day.

“My sister is being born!” Theo shouted to passers-by as she ran down the road. It was a joy that all of New York could share in.

You have to push, then you push yourself. You do it again and again until you produce something new and wonderful. It is a painful process, it is worth it. Eliza’s body knew what to do, ancient muscle memory guiding her through the contractions and the bleeding. Her body expanded to its maximum capacity, and with a great roar the child came forth into the world.

Compared to the tumult of birth, New York seemed quiet. Who could say how long it had taken? Eliza only knew that it was dark outside, and that the hand still holding hers, despite all the squeezing and screaming, belonged to Burr.

Her eyes fluttered open, her arm went out to receive the child. The midwife looked back at her in disbelief.

“It’s a boy.”

Between Burr and Thomas, Eliza had shed all notion that there was an easy way to tell men from women at birth. But there could be no doubt that when her child was laid on her belly fit the standard that had been set however many hundreds of years ago for what constituted a boy.

Times change, the world spun on. Still, it would be foolish not to take the opportunity that presented itself. “Hello Alexander,” Eliza said, and Burr spoke with her.

If she was crying it was with joy, and if this was the world that fate had in store for her she would take it. Eliza breathed deep and felt the rush of new life in her arms and all around her. She would sleep long, and when she woke her family would be waiting for her, ready to continue the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT IS DONE! Thank you so much to anyone and everyone who:  
> a) put up with me falling off the edge of a cliff or smth every time I was supposed to post a new chapter  
> b) left comments and kudos  
> c) just read the damn thing hecky
> 
> Anyways, do come talk to me on [tumblr](http://kim--hanbins.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/chadfuture_) about this 'verse or any other, and have a wonderful day <3

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://kim--hanbins.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/chadfuture_)


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